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TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 




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TALES OF 

^EGEAN INTRIGUE 






BY 

J. C. LAWSON 

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE 
CAMBRIDGE 




NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
681 FIFTH AVENUE 



Copyright, 192 i, 
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



_ r\ V 



Printed in tnc United States of America 

mar -8 1921 

§)C!,A608605 



■IX 



TO 

MY WIFE 

I DEDICATE 

THESE STORIES ADDRESSED TO OUR CHILDREN 

JOHN, MARY, JANE, & ARNOLD 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 



PAGE 

IN THE BYWAYS i 



CHAPTER I 
CARRYING ON 

Part I. The First Lesson 10 

" II. The Second Lesson, with Commentary ... 23 

CHAPTER II 
THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 

Part I. At Cross Purposes 43 

" II. The Deceitfulness of Riches 56 

CHAPTER III 
THE RED BROTHERHOOD ... 73 

CHAPTER IV 

FRITZ & CO 

Part I. The Raid 91 

" II. The Riddle 116 

CHAPTER V 
THE REVOLUTION 

Part I. A Midsummer Day's Dream 143 

" II. The Liberty of the Press 152 

" III. The Meeting of the Streams . . . . .167 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Part IV. In Full Flood 180 

" V. Working to Time 198 

" VI. The Six Machine-guns 204 

" VII. A Problem of Jurisprudence 217 

CHAPTER VI 
THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 

Part I. An Unauthorised Stroke 228 

" II. Evading the Consequences 247 

APPENDIX 

Caviare to the General 259 



TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 



TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

INTRODUCTION 

IN THE BYWAYS 

If these stories should serve as an incitement to 
every pater-familias actual or potential to address to 
his children an Apologia pro Vita Sua 1914-1918, 
otherwise called An Account of what Daddy did in the 
Great War, they would set, I confess, a pernicious 
example: the world itself could not contain the books 
that should be written, or, what is worse, the public 
would not stomach them. And so, if I venture upon 
a narrative of some of my doings, my justification is 
that my experiences have been largely peculiar to 
myself and not a replica of those which tens of 
thousands of others can recount, and my work that 
of a comparatively free agent rather than of one unit 
in a controlled and disciplined mass. For, let me 
avow it at once, my part in the war cannot be deemed, 
in the common acceptance, warlike : I have not been 
under fire; I have not encountered submarine or 
mine; I have not so much as seen an enemy in 
uniform and at large. My path in fact has lain not 
on the crowded highways of the war where men 
endured the burden and heat of the day, or equally 
often the boredom and the cold, but rather in its 
solitary and shady — yes, sometimes distinctly shady — 
byways. 



2 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

Yet byways too, no less than highways, may 
issue anon in some busy centre where the fortune of 
a nation is made or marred: and thus it fell to my 
lot too to play a conscious part in the fashioning of 
Greek history, and to instigate and control in some 
measure the first march of events which had as their 
logical sequel the evacuation of a throne, the victory 
of Doiran, and the deliverance of Asiatic Greece 
from the dominion of the Turk. And therein lies 
my second justification for this narrative. The 
public may remember dimly, as one small item amid 
the enormous happenings of these past five years, 
that in the late summer of 191 6 the island of Crete 
emerged for a space into the limelight, that Venizelos 
was reported to have headed a revolt there against 
the Kaiser's dear ally, Tino, and that a Provisional 
Government was declared. But the public knew 
little more than that even at the time: there were 
but two accredited correspondents who accompanied 
Venizelos from Athens, and their accounts of the 
movement, whether dispatched by wire or by mail, 
were so mauled and mutilated by the censor, that 
they furnished little but material for a missing-word 
competition. I was the censor in question, so I 
know. 

But why this secrecy at the time, if the story may 
now be told? For fear that, if the newspapers gave 
the story to the public, it would ultimately reach the 
ears of the Foreign Office also; and Foreign Office 
policy, or lack of policy, as regards the Near East 
consisted, so far as I could gauge it within the small 
area of my own purview, in waiting to see which way 
the cat jumped. It certainly was a matter of weeks 



INTRODUCTION 3 

on that occasion before the Allied Powers sent, 
through their respective Foreign Offices, to their 
Consuls in Canea, permission to enter into semi-official 
relations with the Governor of Crete as representing 
Mr. Venizelos' Provisional Government, with the 
intimation that the formal recognition of it as a 
gowvernement de fait might be promulgated at an early 
date — or verbiage to that effect. I will not vouch 
for the exact wording of it; but I remember well 
that an urgent meeting of the consular corps was held 
to decide what costume, mode of conveyance, and 
time of day were appropriate to a first call paid by 
them as a courtesy antecedent to the opening of semi- 
official relations with the representative of a Pro- 
visional Government not yet formally recognised; and 
if the proce s-verbal of that delicate discussion is duly 
deposited in our consular archives, it will form a 
precedent, should a problem of such nicety ever recur, 
in favour of claw-hammer coat, silk hat, one-horse 
cab with cavass in undress uniform on the box, and 
(so that the visit may be neither a morning nor an 
afternoon call) the very stroke of noon. For myself 
I had little time for the due balancing of these 
proprieties, and, if I had obtruded my existence upon 
the notice of the Foreign Office, there was a danger 
that a suspicion of hustling would attach to me, and 
that a signal might arrive saying with all due 
circumlocution, caution, and reserve, "Whatever you 
are doing, don't." 

But how came I dans cette galere? you ask. 
Because a certain scrap of paper, to wit a commission 
in His Majesty's Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, 
transformed me one morning from a Cambridge don 



4 TALES OF iEGEAN INTRIGUE 

into a Naval Intelligence Officer; and that in turn, 
because being competent to discourse in Modern 
Greek and French, and possessing withal some insight 
into the Greek mind and character, acquired in travel 
some twenty years ago, I had placed these assets at 
the disposal of the Admiralty, War Office, or other 
unnamed department; and then after some months 
of silence there arose between them a sudden com- 
petition for my services, which the Admiralty won 
by a neck. 

And what does a Naval Intelligence Officer do? 
Why, most things that need no naval "raining. He 
is the link or the buffer, as occasion demands, between 
the squadron to which he belongs and the population 
of the area assigned to that squadron; and this for 
the good reason that, apart from a few dago interpre- 
ters carried by the ships for routine purposes, he is the 
only person who can read the natives' writing and 
speak their tongue. Hence he must act as boarding 
officer and examine manifests and cargo, passengers 
and passports, crew and articles, of every ship brought 
in for examination; and in so doing he must learn 
to discriminate between, let us say, candles really 
made of paraffin wax, which will be contraband, and 
candles intended only to be sold as such, which will 
not; or to decide impromptu whether a supercargo 
is a passenger or a member of the crew. He must 
regulate the traffic of bumboatmen and fishermen 
in the neighbourhood of the squadron's anchorage, 
and administer rough justice by impounding for a while 
the boats of those who trespass or otherwise offend. 
He must secure native agents ashore along coastlines 
of many hundred miles to report sightings of sub- 



INTRODUCTION 5 

marines, and movements of ships or persons suspected 
of communicating with or re-victualling them, and 
devise codes for the passing of such information. 
He must direct the tracking and procure the arrest 
of spies and enemy agents in general. He must 
keep in touch with the military, the police, and the 
administrative authorities of the district, and make 
himself acquainted with their sympathies, capabilities, 
and price. He must keep in touch too with the 
Allied Consuls and assume, as in courtesy bound, 
that theii sympathies and honesty are alike unimpeach- 
able,, but myst not on that account neglect to study 
them; for the best of allies may have private as well 
as common interests. And finally, for the reason 
that the day has only twenty-four hours, he must judge 
what to do and what to leave undone. 

And these are only the bigger tasks, which endless 
little queries and details interrupt. "Message from 
the navigating officer, sir. Can you tell him where 
this place is, — not marked on the chart?" — and the 
Turkish appellation of some bay on the coast of Asia 
Minor is handed to you. The word "bay" you 
identify from a smattering of Turkish place-names; 
the rest depends on your geographical memory. 

Or it is a signal: "Information wanted about 
Papadakis" — so it begins, and you consign Papadakis 
to perdition and reply, or would like to reply, "Will 
gladly exchange information about Papadakis for in- 
formation about Smith, Jones, and Robinson. Have 
seventeen rogues of that name on black list in Canea 
alone." 

Or it is just a submarine reported, and you stick 
a pin in the chart at the latitude and longitude given, 



6 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

and compare the place and hour of sighting with any 
agent's report from the shore, to see if they tally and 
indicate the course the submarine has been steering. 

Or the paymaster has a problem: "Look here, 
man of intelligence; the washerwoman who has the 
contract for the sick-quarters linen and blankets is 
weeping outside here in charge of the sentry; she 
says the price of soap has doubled, soda is up 75 
centimes the oke, and starch is rationed so that she is 
not allowed enough unless she forgoes her sugar, and 
then her husband, who is particular about his coffee 
being sweet, beats her. I told the interpreter to 
explain that we did not want the blankets starched, 
but that did not comfort her a bit. You might find 
out the facts about prices and send me a chit about 
revising the contract, and what would be a reasonable 
rate per dozen pieces." 

Or else the commander is bothered about the 
number of men returning aboard each day drunk and, 
as regards their legs, paralytic, because it is the legs 
much more than the head that are affected when 
mastich, the local spirit, is consumed by the mugful 
instead of beer: "Can't you put the fear of God into 
some of the swine who are selling this poison?" 
And you spend the best part of a day preparing a 
black list of the worst pubs ashore, to be put out of 
bounds and raided periodically by the picket, and 
making a corrupt, secret, and sensible bargain with a 
few selected houses, that they shall enjoy a monopoly 
of the bluejackets' custom so long as they keep no 
spirits on the premises, and the wine in their casks 
diluted to the extent of one-third with clean water, 
and exhibit also a price-list of liquor, adjusted pro- 



INTRODUCTION 7 

portionately to the dilution, and approved by you. 
And all these odds and ends take time. 

Such at least was my experience of an Intelligence 
Officer's duties, though others would tell a tale of less 
variety. One's whole orbit might be about a 
directional wireless centre where the positions of 
radiotelegraphically loquacious submarines were 
plotted. Another might be mail-officer at one of the 
larger bases, restricted to duties little above the ca- 
pacity of an intelligent village-postmaster. And, 
monotony having been for so many naval officers the 
principal and most wearing aspect of this war, I may 
count myself fortunate that I rarely knew what would 
be the next day's task. In fact during the first year 
that I was out there, to which period all the stories I 
shall tell belong, so far as the nature and variety of my 
work were concerned, I would not willingly have ex- 
changed my billet for any other. 

And as regards pay — well, every officer and man 
had a grievance there, and I among them. There 
fell a time of stress when, though holding only the 
commission of a temporary lieutenant in the Navy, I 
had to control ashore (without authority to command) 
a division of irregulars operating over some hundred 
miles of country and conducting the investment of 
three towns. On the success of the movement 
depended the accession of another Ally to the 
Entente; and the movement succeeded. Assuming 
that I did not work more than sixteen hours in the 
twenty-four during that period, the total remuneration 
of my services worked out at S%d. an hour less In- 
come Tax. Picture the Bargees' Union at home dis- 
cussing the same wage ! 



8 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

The Government knew well the injustices which it 
was perpetrating; it had nothing new to learn from 
the report of the Jerram Committee; and therefore to 
the Government first and foremost must be imputed 
the folly which risked the undermining of naval morale 
by a deliberate policy of sweating. Or should we 
rather credit our successive governments — Liberal or 
Coalition made no odds — with the cold cynical wisdom 
of seeing that they could trade on naval and military 
patriotism, the while they truckled to civil commercial- 
ism, until the war was won? Let them have it which 
way they will, but thank God withal and not them- 
selves that there was no mutiny. Men went on strike 
for less cause at home. 

And you too, Gentlemen of the House of Com- 
mons, the liberality of your provision for the Navy 
left something to be desired. You could exert pressure 
enough on the Government to get your own salaries 
exempted from Income Tax, but I can recall no con- 
certed effort on your part to secure the same complete 
exemption for the fighting services, let alone any im- 
provement in their pay. You were a party to the 
Government's policy of sweating. 

Little wonder then if the political world enjoys but 
low esteem in naval circles. I had at one time a ship's 
interpreter — an illiterate youth, but quick of ear and 
intelligible in four or five languages — who summarised 
our feelings with innocent accuracy. "A gen'leman 
demands to see you, sir," he announced one day. 
"What sort of gentleman, Manoli?" I asked. "A 
dampol'tician, sir," he replied. "A what?" "C'est 
tin depute, Monsieur, qui demande a vous voir." "Oh, 
I see; a dam' politician. Your English is getting on, 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Manoli; where did you learn that word?" "I listen 
the officers how they speak, sir. They not say depute, 
they say always 'dampol'tician.' " "And when the 
men are talking, Manoli, what do they say?" But 
Manoli blushed, and I made haste to proceed: "Well, 
never mind what the men say; go on studying the 
officers' good language; you can improve on 'dampol'- 
tician'; c' est le mot juste." Whereon Manoli blushed 
again, but this time with pleasure at my commendation, 
and always thereafter enabled me to greet the least 
welcome visitor with a smile of delight, by his an- 
nouncement of "a dampol'tician, sir." 

Mais revenons a nos moutons. It is the adventures 
of a particular Intelligence Officer which I set out to 
relate, not the thoughts with which thousands of others 
too flavoured an insipid day, or coloured a nuit blanche. 



CHAPTER I 

CARRYING ON 

PART I.— THE FIRST LESSON 

There was a certain thrill in the sight of that official 
envelope, the first addressed to me as Lieutenant 
R.N.V.R. What would its contents reveal? They 
revealed primarily that the designation on the envelope 
was correct, save that if pedantic accuracy were desired 
the qualifying word "temporary" should be added; 
and there was a further intimation that I was appointed 
to H.M.S. Enropa, and that I should report to the 
Naval Transport Officer, Liverpool, in the forenoon 
of a date some ten days later, with a view to taking 
passage by H.M. Transport Cameronian now lying in 
such and such a dock. 

Voila tout: no plethora of instructions, you observe, 
nor satisfaction of idle curiosity. I might wish to 
know my ultimate destination, or at least welcome 
some hint as to the best place to look for the Enropa 
if she should happen to be roving the seas; I learnt 
however from privy inquiries here and there, that she 
had long been lying in Mudros harbour, — and maybe 
she lies there still; for, as our modern Pepys might 
have it, whether she was even then afloat or fast 
stranded, as some did aver, like the Aragon before 
her, on a reef of soda-water bottles, God knows. I 

10 



CARRYING ON 11 

might wish too for some inkling of my prospective 
duties, and the official valuation of them in £. s. d.\ 
but perhaps the one was not yet known (my appoint- 
ment being in fact not for service in, but for disposal 
by, the Enropa) and the other was better concealed. 
I might wish to be informed with what uniform and 
accessories I should provide myself within the space 
of ten days, and what allowance would be forthcoming 
in respect thereof; and this matter of uniform seemed 
urgent. But, if the contents of that official envelope 
were not immediately illuminating, their very silence 
was a naval parable; and the interpretation of the 
parable is this, that he who has no instructions to 
carry out must carry on. 

So I carried on with my outfit, and learnt by the 
same privy inquiries that, by filling up a certain form 
which had not been sent to me, I should ultimately 
become entitled to a uniform allowance of twenty 
pounds sterling; that meantime I should judiciously 
expend this sum in the purchase of two suits of the 
monkey-jacket order, two caps, one heavy overcoat, all 
with their appropriate buttons, gold lace, and badges; 
also two pairs of boots without toe-caps, for the ab- 
sence of toe-caps is a vital factor in the command of 
the sea. Sea-boots, oil-skins, and such-like I might 
perhaps omit, for my duties in general would not be 
on deck; but, as I was going to the Mediterranean, 
I should add half-a-dozen suits of white duck uniform, 
with a helmet and white buckskin foot-gear, likewise 
free from toe-caps, to match; and, say, one tin uni- 
form-case at least, impervious to rats and perplexing 
to cockroaches, in which to stow what was not in use ; 
and that no questions would be asked whether I had 



12 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

invested the balance of my allowance in War Loan or 
squandered it in riotous living. 

These preliminaries accomplished, by the night 
mail to Liverpool and ho ! for the Cameronian. But 
it was heigh-ho ! not ho ! before I was through with it. 
The Cameronian was not in the dock indicated by the 
Admiralty, nor was the Naval Transport Office in the 
neighbourhood of the docks. In fact no one down 
there could say where it was, but if the Y.M.C.A. or 
the Home for Distressed Mariners would do as 

well No, it would not; I was hoping to deposit 

my gear in a ship called the Cameronian and to present 
myself at the Naval Transport Office. Oh, the 
Cameronian; wasn't that her what was coaling in No. 
12 dock? Bill would know; and Bill being summoned 
misdirected me to the Cameronia. Now the Came- 
ronia was certainly not ready for sea, and I mistrusted 
the loss of even one letter of her name; so I decided to 
concentrate on finding the Transport Officer. Through 
driving snow and oozing streets my taxi tracked him 
to his lair. Quite a comfortable lair and obliging 
people. Oh, yes, there was a Cameronian as well as a 
Cameronia. No, they had no instructions about me, 
but I could take passage by either if her destination 
seemed suitable. My orders said the Cameronian? 
Very good, they would 'phone and find out where she 
was. One moment. Yes, dock No. 5 ; the Admiralty 
was always giving these wrong numbers; and likely to 
sail next day. 

One more trek through the slush, and — none 
inviting, observing, or gainsaying me, for there 
appeared to be only a steward acting as caretaker — I 
was aboard the good ship Cameronian, which had 



CARRYING ON 13 

started life as the bad ship Cameroon (or Kamerun) 
engaged in German trade with the west coast of 
Africa, and, though captured and converted into a 
British transport, still displayed her saloon and deck 
notices in the German tongue. It appeared that I was 
the first arrival apart from a few aliens stowed below 
for repatriation to the Levant; but in the course of the 
next twenty-four hours there strayed on board, as if 
tired of tramping the docks, twos and threes and small 
detachments naval and military, until we numbered a 
couple of hundred all told. 

The hour to push off was approaching when a Naval 
Transport Officer appeared, and after making a few 
inquiries sent for me. Had I been to sea before, he 
wished to know. No, not in that garb, which in fact 
had left the tailor's hands only some days ago, nor 
in any position of authority. Well, that could not be 
helped; it appeared that the only other officers taking 
passage were a subaltern A.S.C. and three warrant- 
officers. I was the senior in rank and therefore O.C. 
troops. What were the duties and responsibilities of 
the O.C. troops? Oh, just discipline in general, and 
giving the captain some assistance in watch-keeping, 
and maintaining order while the boats were manned, 
if by any chance, we were torpedoed; and by the way 
I could of course take the best cabin for my sole use. 
Were there any books or papers I could refer to for 
guidance in my duties? No, the routine was quite 
simple; I should soon pick it up. But there was a list 
at any rate, I supposed, of the various units on board 
and their destinations? Why, no; they had been ex- 
pecting a lot more than seemed to have turned up: 
there ought to have been some twenty officers and two 



14 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

or three hundred more troops, as well as some horses. 
Perhaps we should call at some port down south 
and embark them there. Meantime I must see what 
was wanted and carry on. Good-bye, and good 
luck! 

It was all a trifle disillusioning as regards the per- 
fection of naval organisation in which the British 
public had been encouraged to believe. We all know 
now of course, or those of us who have read the 
Commander-in-Chief's record of the first two years of 
the war, that our boasted naval organisation and effi- 
ciency had left us without protected bases, without 
docks for our capital ships, without armour-piercing 
projectiles that could be guaranteed to pierce armour 
before they burst. We all know now that politician 
after politician at the head of naval affairs had neg- 
lected the counsel of his competent naval advisers, and 
that they in turn, our Sea Lords, had failed to carry 
their insistence to the point of resigning in a body and 
forcing the Government's hand. So true is it that 
many men will risk their lives for their country, but 
few their careers. But those facts were not then 
common property, nor had experience yet forced upon 
my mind that paradox of psychology. 

And yet in it perhaps is summed up the whole ex- 
planation not only of neglect before the war but of 
many opportunities missed in its course. The story 
of the Goeben alone would provide more than one 
example. It seems so much safer to many senior 
officers, whose career is already made or well assured, 
to report and to request instructions than to risk a 
decision and act; and wireless telegraphy affords such 
tempting facilities. And then too it is the same old 



CARRYING ON 15 

safe course by which they have reached their actual 
eminence. When the half-yearly promotions are 
announced, what is the criticism in any ward-room? 
"I wonder why So-and-so has been passed over. He 
has not got anything against him. Of course most of 
the others were pretty safe men too, and there is a bit 
of influence to help here, and plenty of money there. 
I wonder if he has made a mess of anything lately" ; 
as if by common consent it were agreed that the sure 
path to promotion lay in the negative virtue of not 
making a mess and in playing for safety. 

And here is a little-known anecdote a propos. 
When the Goeben was first heading for Constanti- 
nople, a very gallant admiral of a then neutral country 
made the spirited offer to join in pursuing her through 
the Dardanelles and bringing her to action, regardless 
of the fact that either he was committing his Govern- 
ment to war with Germany or in the alternative must 
himself be dismissed the service; he asked only that 
he might be granted the post of honour in leading 
through the perilous waters. How many of our own 
senior officers would have possessed the mental courage 
to make so compromising an offer, or even to accept 
it? They too, if the venture were to be made, would 
have sought the post of honour and of peril; but that 
other courage, the courage to act without reporting 
and requesting instructions which might, or must, ar- 
rive too late — how many would have displayed it? 
Perhaps I wrong them, but I think that the peace- 
time habit of playing for safety in the game of pro- 
motion had become in many a confirmed and uncon- 
scious habit not easily abandoned in war-time. 

In junior officers the habit is naturally less rooted, 



16 TALES OF JSGEAN INTRIGUE 

and the temptation to request instructions less strong. 
They get plenty of instructions unsolicited on matters 
of routine, and welcome a chance to play their own 
game without orders when routine yields to emergency. 
Their careers are not yet made, so that they should 
chiefly fear to mar them, but rather are in the making; 
and youth can see in war as many opportunities as 
perils. And so it is that no habit of caution, combined 
with the fatal facility of wireless communication, has 
paralysed in them that power which is no more naval 
than military or civil, but is rather of the essence of 
British character wherever circumstances may call for 
its exercise, the power to carry on. 

Will that, I wonder, be the verdict of history? 
That not by statesmanship, not by strategy, not by 
foresight and organisation was this war won, but by 
the high average of our countrymen's power, in fair 
weather or in foul, in darkness or in light, to carry on? 

These — need I say it? — were not the reflections in 
my mind as H.M. Transport Cameronian moved out 
of dock. There were more practical matters requiring 
attention. First there was the best cabin to be secured; 
and next there were the warrant-officers and the sub- 
altern to be interviewed in the hope that out of some 
previous experience they might throw light on the 
routine of a transport and the duties of the O.C. 
troops. There I drew a blank, for none of them had 
been in a transport before; but the subaltern knew 
what the minimum of formal parades would be in 
camp, on a Sunday for instance, when there was no 
drill, route-march, or other special distraction ordered, 
and the warrant-officers of course knew the ordinary 
naval routine. A cross between the two should serve. 



CARRYING ON 17 

Apart from the hours to be fixed for feeding and 
for sleeping, which I could settle at once with the 
captain of the vessel, the most important matter was 
to divide the men up into watches and messes, with a 
petty officer or N.C.O. responsible for each, and to 
hold divisions each morning at which they could parade 
and answer to their names, be inspected as regards 
cleanliness and correct uniform, and be told off for 
various duties; for there was a gun's crew to be pro- 
vided and watch to be kept on the gun-platform aft, 
a duty which I handed over to one of the warrant- 
officers who was fortunately an expert therein; there 
was assistance too to be given in watch-keeping in 
general, for the ship was short both of officers and 
men; and there were mess-decks to be scrubbed, and 
other miscellanea. But before any of this could be 
done, I must have a list of the men on board, a list 
which might as well include at once, name, rank, regi- 
ment or ship, and destination. So having appointed 
the signal-boatswain from among the warrant-officers 
as my adjutant, I took a tour of the ship under his 
guidance, to see how matters stood and the best way of 
setting to work. 

That project was sound in principle, but unwork- 
able for the time being in practice. Too many of the 
men were drunk, and mixed up with them was a good 
portion of the ship's company also drunk, including, 
as we learnt later, the officers' cook, whose idee fixe 
when in liquor was burnt porridge — served liquid at 
dinner as soup, thicker at breakfast without an alias, 
and solid at lunch as pudding. So having merely ar- 
ranged that any drunken persons lying in the snow on 
deck should be stowed in shelter somewhere below, I 



18 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

postponed the list-making till next day; whereby I 
looked not only to obtain an accurate list, but to avoid 
the necessity of spending an hour or two next morning 
in imposing haphazard and probably irregular penal- 
ties for drunkenness. Of course the problem had to be 
faced in a few cases later; and, confinement to barracks 
appearing an inadequate penalty when no one wished 
to make an exit overboard, while anything which in- 
volved entries on pay-sheets or other forms which we 
did not possess was obviously precluded, the solution 
which I adopted was that of shutting them up in what 
was apparently an old strong-room, forward of the 
mess-deck, used for stowing valuables when the ship 
was in the West African trade : the motion of the ves- 
sel was felt considerably there, and offenders mostly 
emerged sick and sorry as well as sober. 

Next morning the nominal list was duly made out, 
with some gaps only as regards the destination of 
units; but as I expected to be in command not farther 
than Malta, and should hand them over to the authori- 
ties there for disposal, that mattered little. The hold- 
ing of divisions was easily managed. The signal- 
boatswain as my executive officer had the men 
mustered aft and drawn up in the proper style, and 
did a preliminary inspection. He then reported to me, 
in my cabin of course, that they were ready, and told 
me a couple of details he had purposely left for me 
to find fault with as I made my own inspection. Upon 
these I duly passed a curt comment as I followed him 
round, then read prayers, and finally told the signal- 
boatswain to carry on; which meant that he should 
tell off various parties for their several duties and 
then dismiss the lot in the appropriate language which 



CARRYING ON 19 

I did not know. So with the aid of a warrant-officer 
who played the game, a Prayer Book, and the two 
words "carry on," the thing was done. Blessed words, 
that can cover a multitude of ignorances ! 

The other main feature of routine, I gathered, was 
going the rounds, — morning and evening rounds, — to 
satisfy myself concerning the cleanliness of the mess- 
decks, the sanitary arrangements, the means of darken- 
ing ship, the wearing of life-belts, the adequacy and 
provisioning of boats and rafts, the readiness of the 
gun for action, and the alertness of its crew — some of 
these things requiring regular inspection, others oc- 
casional only. And this duty was by no means merely 
formal, but productive of work that needed to be done. 
The gun-platform had only just been built, and the 
constructors had omitted to put so much as a handrail 
round it, so that one slip in heavy weather would have 
meant rolling sheer overboard — and that too though 
the ship was noted for her powers of rolling. Then 
such measures as had been taken for darkening ship 
were half-measures only: the skylights of the engine- 
room and the portholes of the ship's officers' cabins 
abaft the bridge were a pillar of fire by night for any 
submarine. Boat-stations too had to be arranged, and 
that moreover with the knowledge cheerfully imparted 
to me by that genial and fearless old fatalist, the cap- 
tain, that, if we set aside our few odd rafts for re- 
patriating the Levantines, our boats could not last 
half an hour, with the numbers authorised to be al- 
lotted to them, except in most unexpected weather. 
There was also medical attendance, for the O.C. 
troops is ex officio doctor, though I am glad to say he 
is not also steward. 



20 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

Naturally there were one or two little contretemps. 
Enter one day Warrant-officer No. 3 to whom I had 
assigned not only the duty of doing the engine-room 
rounds on my behalf, the engine-room being his native 
province, but also a share of watch-keeping on the 
bridge. To this latter duty he objected, alleging that 
I had no right to order an engineer officer to under- 
take it, and proposing to write me a service-letter on 
the point. Now I was none too clear what a service- 
letter might be, or whether he was merely putting up 
a bluff, because it was too cold for his liking on the 
bridge. Moreover this was a point on which I could 
not seek the signal-boatswain's counsel, without asking 
him in effect to give away his fellow warrant-officer. 
I therefore pointed out to him that my order might 
or might not be irregular, but that it would be worse 
than irregular, to wit a serious breach of discipline, if 
he should fail to comply with it. As for the service- 
letter (which I assumed to be some kind of formal 
protest against my conduct, and therefore proper to 
be passed on to some superior authority) I would deal 
with it at Malta; meantime if he wished for my orders 
in writing (a vague memory of some yarn involving a 
question of naval discipline suggested this counter- 
bluff) he could have them; but as the ship was short 
of watch-keepers, I expected him, until we reached 
Malta, to "carry on." Which, being in fact a good 
enough fellow, he did, nor did we even exchange the 
suggested billets-doux. 

Enter a few days later the signal-boatswain, with 
a face as long as your arm. We were just south of 
the Bay, and for twenty-four hours the Cameronian's 
capacities in rolling had been tested to the uttermost. 



CARRYING ON 21 

Probably none of us had slept that night: short of 
being lashed down in our bunks, there would have 
been no chance. I had spent the night in retrieving, 
and wedging into temporary immobility, the drawers 
under my bunk, which, being unprovided with keys 
to lock them fast, shot out at intervals and shed my 
belongings on the floor; and had finished up by pad- 
dling in paraffin and broken glass to give chase to a 
heavy brass lamp, which had been shaken out of its 
socket and taken charge, with the evident intention of 
battering for itself an exit. So the signal-boatswain's 
long face did not surprise me : I only hoped it was 
none of the men missing. "What is the trouble, 
signal-boatswain?" "The rum-cask broken adrift, sir, 
and stove in." "Any of the rum saved?" "Enough 
for two or three days, sir; I looked to the lashings 
last night, as I told you when you went the rounds, 
sir; but anything might go adrift with this sea 
running." 

The signal-boatswain took a gloomy view of the 
matter; he would have reported our boats stove in far 
more cheerfully than our one rum-cask. We might 
have repaired them, or, if irreparable, might never 
have wanted them; but the men wanted their daily 
tot, and we had only two or three days' supply to last 
a full week or more. He clearly saw trouble ahead 
among the miscellaneous lot of ratings of whom we 
knew nothing, even if I were to promise them compen- 
sation in money, when we reached Malta, for the 
liquor they had missed; and I did not even know 
whether such a promise would be redeemed. "No 
good reducing the quantity we serve out, sir," quoth 
the signal-boatswain — but surely with an appreciable 



22 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

emphasis on "quantity." "That is true," said I, "but 
the quality is sure to deteriorate gradually in any case 
now that the cask, is stove in, and neither air-tight nor 
water-tight. Well, carry on as best you can, and re- 
port to me if there are any difficulties. But, look here, 
signal-boatswain, I will look up the lessons beforehand 
for church on Sunday, and see that there is no refer- 
ence to the widow's cruse, or the miracle in Cana of 
Galilee: you know your Bible, I hope." "Aye, 
aye, sir." And he carried on without incident or com- 
plaint. 

And so we reached Malta, and my last duty was 
to report on the efficiency of the captain of the trans- 
port and his attention to war-time regulations. I, 
forsooth, who had played the role of O.C. troops 
aboard a transport for the space of a fortnight and 
had never seen the war-time regulations, to report on 
the efficiency of a merchant captain who had occupied 
his business in great waters these thirty years and 
more, and upon his compliance with the said regula- 
tions unknown ! Fortunately a formal questionnaire 
was provided, and I merely inserted favourable an- 
swers, and we had a laugh over it together, and a drink 
to our next meeting, and so good-bye. But that next 
meeting was not to be, for a year later he and his 
first officer with their ship lay at the bottom of the 
Mediterranean. God rest their gallant souls. 

So here, at Malta, ended my first lesson in carry- 
ing on. 



CARRYING ON 23 

PART II.— THE SECOND LESSON, WITH 
COMMENTARY 

The second lesson began at Mudros, where after 
being relegated for ten weary days to the casual ward 
of the naval camp to await disposal, I found myself 
appointed Intelligence Officer on the staff of the 
Senior Naval Officer (in briefer parlance hereinafter 
the S.N.O.) of the First Detached Squadron. This 
squadron, I was told, had just been formed to take 
charge of an area comprising Crete and the coast of 
Asia Minor from the south of Samos to Rhodes, to- 
gether with any islands, roughly speaking, which would 
be passed in going from any point of the one to any 
point of the other. As for my duties, there had not 
been an Intelligence Officer down that way hitherto, 
so I must see what was wanted and carry on. I would 
not swear that the words were identical with those 
used by the Transport Officer at Liverpool, but the 
identity of their sense was not in doubt. 

Two days later I had joined the S.N.O.'s ship, 
H.M.S. Edgar, at the small island of Stampalia, and 
we proceeded almost at once to occupy Suda Bay, the 
one spacious harbour of Crete, which was destined to 
be the scene of my activities for the next eighteen 
months; and there I learnt to sum up the general 
position, policy, and problems consequent thereupon 
somewhat thus. First, from the strictly naval point 
of view, Suda Bay was an excellent base from which 
to conduct the larger part of our work — patrolling 
and escorting on the triangle of main routes between 
Malta, Salonica, and Alexandria, which routes all 
touched our area; making any harbours in Crete or 



24 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

the other islands allotted to us a risky resort for any 
enemy submarines which might be using them for pur- 
poses of rest, revictualling, or communications; and 
controlling neutral traffic with a view to the seizure 
of contraband or enemy agents. But, as regards main- 
taining the blockade of the Asia Minor coast, Suda 
Bay was too distant to be suitable. As a matter of 
fact it was necessary to use a secondary base in one 
of the adjacent islands almost from the first, and 
ultimately this part of the area was cut off and was 
combined more happily with the blockading area to 
the north of it. Personally I only visited it once 
or twice, and my stories relate to Crete and its neigh- 
bourhood. 

Politically however our position was more ambigu- 
ous. We had installed ourselves in the harbour of a 
neutral power; whether with that power's express 
consent or as a necessary corollary to our occupation 
of Salonica, I never heard; but one instruction which 
we definitely and simultaneously received was to 
respect the three-mile limit; from which it resulted 
theoretically that, if we wished to exercise the right of 
search as regards any neutral ship bound for the very 
harbour we were occupying, we were enjoined to send 
out a vessel beyond the three-mile limit to board her 
and bring her into port for further investigation. 
This difficulty however could be, and ultimately was, 
adjusted by a friendly arrangement with the main 
shipping-companies, beneficial to both parties, under 
which all steamships bound for Crete should make 
Suda their first port of call, and all leaving Crete 
should make it their last port, and voluntarily submit 
themselves to examination. Very few of the coasting 



CARRYING ON 25 

vessels proved recalcitrant even at first; and after 
we had once exercised our right of detaining one ship, 
which had failed to conform, and discharging her 
whole cargo into lighters for more thorough inspec- 
tion, none. 

A far worse handicap imposed by the political 
situation was that we might not arrest any person on 
terra firm a \ and it was therefore open to the German 
and Austrian Consuls at Canea to employ an agent in 
Suda village to report to them by telephone the move- 
ments of all our shipping. It took nearly three 
months of negotiation with the Admiralty and the 
Foreign Office to secure what they ought to have ef- 
fected of their own initiative before ever we were 
ordered to occupy Suda Bay, the removal of the 
enemy consuls from the neighbourhood of our base. 
Meanwhile I might knOw, as in fact I did, which 
official in the Suda post-office was paid to report to 
the German Consul any movements which he could see, 
or any information which he could glean; I might 
surmise that those consuls were well provided with 
agents at other points of the island, capable of passing 
to enemy submarines the information that a well-filled 
transport was raising steam; but nothing could be 
done locally; our instructions were to occupy the bay 
as our base, but on no account to arrest the spies who 
sat on the beach and watched our doings. 

But the trouble did not end there. I soon made 
a perplexing discovery which would have caused no 
little consternation at home had it been made public. 
Enemy representatives and agents in neutral countries 
were using the cables of the Eastern Telegraph 
Company with no more let or hindrance than British 



26 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

or Allied representatives. Now the Eastern Tele- 
graph Company is a British concern, with international 
obligations corresponding to its privileges, and 
obviously could not of its own initiative exercise any 
discrimination in neutral countries between messages 
of allied or enemy origin; but I cannot doubt that 
the directors of the Company were keenly alive to 
the fact that their cables might be the vehicle of 
enemy intelligence, and consulted the Government as 
to the Company's legal and correct position. Would 
they, for example, be trading with the enemy by 
accepting the messages of enemy agents for trans- 
mission? Would they be aiding and abetting intelli- 
gence with the enemy by forwarding messages to an 
enemy destination? Could any check be imposed 
upon their acceptance of enemy telegrams in code or 
cypher? These were obvious questions which should 
have been debated and settled by the Imperial Defence 
Committee before ever war broke out, and not have 
been left to the Company to raise; and yet at the 
time of which I speak, nearly two years after the 
outbreak of war, here were the German and Austrian 
Consuls in Canea, some four miles only from a British 
naval base, enjoying all the facilities of a British- 
owned cable-system for the transmission of their 
cypher-messages to their legations in Athens or else- 
where. 

Now this was no mere oversight. I know that in 
the Greek area concerned representations were made. 
At Athens the Company's manager discussed the 
position with the British Minister, and I am reason- 
ably confident that their former manager in the 
important centre of Syra, who held a naval commis- 



CARRYING ON 27 

sion during the war for the express purpose of super- 
intending the cables of the Eastern Mediterranean, 
discussed it equally with the Vice-Admiral to whose 
staff he was attached. I may infer then that both the 
Foreign Office and the Admiralty were cognisant of 
the situation as it had existed in Greece, and presum- 
ably in other neutral countries bordering the Medi- 
terranean, from the beginning of the war. 

Here then was a problem affecting both interna- 
tional relations and the conduct of naval operations 
from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, a 
problem demanding instant and vigorous treatment. 
Every day's delay, during which enemy agents were 
free to wire to Germany the movements of British 
shipping, was exposing to avoidable peril our vessels 
and their freights of men and munitions. What 
proportion of our losses in those waters should be 
attributed to that masterpiece of departmental incom- 
petence and inertia, can never be computed; but even 
now, when in spite of that treasonable negligence the 
war has been won, the departments concerned should 
be called to account. To the Foreign Office, I suppose, 
must attach the greater obloquy; but surely, if the For- 
eign Office was too timid or lethargic to devise a rem- 
edy, the Admiralty might have stimulated it, by cutting 
one or two of the cables less necessary to ourselves. 

I confess that I thought of solving our own local 
problem by some such means; but even if I had in- 
duced some sportsman in command of a trawler to 
locate and drop depth charges on our two cables at 
Canea and Candia, the relief would have been only 
temporary, and the coincidence of two similar mishaps 
would have aroused suspicion. So I set to work to 



28 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

worry the British Minister in Athens instead, and I 
remember well how I scandalised certain of his 
entourage by my manner of doing so. Yet the 
manner of the naval officer is traditionally blunt, and 
it was but in keeping with my role of temporary naval 
officer to be blunt pro tern. So I submitted to the 
Minister three plain propositions: (i) that the system 
of the Eastern Telegraph Company had been in fact 
at the service of the German and Austrian Consuls in 
Canea, and presumably at that of enemy agents in 
neutral countries throughout the Mediterranean area, 
to the detriment of British shipping; (2) that inas- 
much as a company of such standing so situated must 
have consulted the Foreign Office with regard to its 
obligations, it was the Foreign Office which must bear 
the whole responsibility and blame for giving to our 
enemies a form of aid which if given by a private 
individual would be treasonable; and (3) if the con- 
tinuance of such aid over a space of two years was due 
to the difficulty of formulating a satisfactory diplo- 
matic solution of the problem, the situation could be 
rectified, so far as Crete and probably certain other 
places were concerned, by the crude naval method of 
cutting the cables and relying on wireless only. 

This last suggestion was a bluff only, which the 
Minister could have detected by communicating with 
my S.N.O. or with the Vice-Admiral; but I believe 
that it had some effect; at any rate I took some 
credit to myself, though I will warrant no one else 
gave me any, when about a month later a Note 
presented to the Greek Government demanded inter 
alia the establishment of a censorship of telegrams by 
the Allies at Piraeus. 



CARRYING ON 29 

But this was in September, 191 6, and we had 
taken five months to obtain even this measure of 
supervision, which, unless it were extended to Syra 
and Zante as well as Piraeus, was miserably inade- 
quate; and meanwhile, as I have said, our instructions 
were to respect the neutral territory whence spies 
watched us and enemy consuls or their agents tele- 
graphed our movements. 

Ah, those instructions ! An officer charged with 
duties of contre-espionnage might well chafe under 
them. I had asked for instructions at Liverpool, and 
had been told to carry on; I had asked for them at 
Mudros and been told once more to carry on; I got 
them unasked at Suda, and wished heartily I had been 
left to carry on uninstructed. And now too, in 
looking back, I remember few instructions emanating 
from any higher authority than the S.N.O. on the spot 
which would not better have been labelled obstruc- 
tions. I never lightly and unadvisedly sought them 
again; and perhaps I may add here that under succes- 
sive S.N.O.'s I was given a very free hand in political 
and other non-naval matters, and that therefore such 
irregularities of procedure as may be revealed in the 
stories which I have to tell are chargeable against me 
rather than against my commanding officer, and in 
no degree whatsoever against that monument of 
cautious inactivity, the Foreign Office. 

There was only one branch of my work in respect 
of which I should have welcomed general instructions, 
not so much because I should necessarily have followed 
them, but rather for comparison with the principles 
which I gradually evolved for myself. My position 
as Intelligence Officer involved a considerable amount 



30 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

of secret-service work, particularly contre-espionnage. 
Crete, like the mainland of Greece, was in the hands 
of King Constantine and his gang, and no sooner had 
we occupied Suda Bay than the "neutral and friendly" 
government of Greece issued a confidential circular to 
the police authorities of Crete, ordering them to 
protect the Germans and their agents and to obstruct 
the British in every possible way. I saw the docu- 
ment. What principles of law, morality, or expediency 
govern the methods which may be adopted for com- 
bating such a situation? 

Our politicians and journalists assure us from time 
to time that the British Secret Service is the best in 
the world. I do not know whether that is true any 
more than, I imagine, do they; but, if it is true, it 
must be the outcome of some natural genius in our 
people for such work, and not of training or organisa- 
tion; for the secret-service work of the iEgean — a 
difficult enough area — was conducted by amateurs, 
and I for one never received one word of guidance. 

Now it is hardly to be expected that international 
law should formulate the etiquette of espionnage or 
of the methods permissible for countering it, more 
especially in a case where the two warring powers are 
using for their arena a neutral country. But, though 
the law be not such an ass as to bray enactments which 
could have no sanction, there still remain the principles 
of morality and of expediency; and these two, though 
commonly contrasted as antitheses, are in the domain 
of international policy so closely correlated that, even- 
when due allowance is made for all the relaxations of 
moral standards which the state of war in itself 
implies, a code of conduct based on apparent expedi- 



CARRYING ON 31 

ency alone will still be not only morally wrong but 
politically inexpedient. 

The reason of this is simple. On that delicate 
moral quality which we call "honour" depends that 
solid political asset, prestige. Prestige may be but- 
tressed by commerce and industry, by scientific inven- 
tion and achievement, by naval and military might, but 
its foundation is character. If any one doubts it, let 
him ask any Greek, or any one who has lived among 
Greeks in these latter years, what fact or event in the 
history of the war has most enhanced British prestige 
in those parts, and the answer will be, not our com- 
mand of the sea, not our training and equipment of 
so many million troops, not our output of munitions 
nor the feeding and financing of our allies, nor yet any 
signal victory or feat of arms by land or sea, but the 
great fire of Salonica. And why? Because among 
all that medley of nations the British soldier did not 
loot. Of this I am persuaded, that in all the course 
of the war no British statesman or diplomat, admiral 
or general, has done so much to raise British prestige 
in the eyes of the Greek world as was done in that one 
day by the rank and file of our Salonica forces, who, 
happening to be at hand, refrained from looting and 
threw themselves into the work of rescue and salvage 
as heartily as if it had been their favourite sport. 

Now the secret-service agent in the byways of 
war represents his country no less than the soldier in 
the open field; but just because he is more isolated 
his individual character is more prominent; and in 
proportion as the possibilities of his work are more 
complex, his personal opportunities for raising or 
lowering the prestige of his country are more frequent 



32 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

and varied. Of course his personal predilections in 
favour of keeping the ten commandments may be such 
that no act of his is likely to stain his country's good 
repute ; but then an mtransigeant attitude towards 
moral standards in war-time will also impair his 
efficiency as an agent. "Thou shalt not kill" does 
not veto the extermination of the enemy. "Thou 
shalt not steal" does not prohibit the seizure of 
contraband. And possibly "Thou shalt not bear false 
witness" has not interfered unduly with propaganda. 
The state of war automatically abrogates certain 
moral laws, or at least limits their application. The 
man who fails to recognise this fact, and makes a 
hobby of a rigid conscience to the detriment of his 
country, must prove a failure in secret-service work. 
But the opposite type is worse than a failure : he 
constitutes a public danger. I have met more than 
one man engaged in intelligence duties who held that 
the state of war gave exemption from all moral 
restraints, and that secret-service work meant devilry 
unlimited, though of course, if possible, undetected. 
A man holding such views needs but sufficient fool- 
hardiness to take the risk of detection, or sufficient 
self-conceit to think detection impossible, in order to 
commit the country which he represents to every form 
and degree of crime. He procures, let us say, the 
assassination of some eminent person in a neutral 
country whose political influence is tending to make 
that country privily or avowedly espouse the enemy's 
cause. The coup successfully effected promises to 
incline the scales in favour of his own country and 
her allies; and, if suspicion is aroused, he has funds 
enough to buy silence. It seems a small thing to 



CARRYING ON 33 

him, if he gives it a thought, that the assassin whom 
he employs, and any others whose silence must be 
bought, write him down as lacking only the pluck to 
be a murderer himself, and as a fit subject therefore 
for blackmail. It would seem smaller still perhaps 
that in the esteem of a corrupt handful of assassins 
and blackmailers the character of the country which he 
represents should be an enlargement, as it were, of 
his own. And yet as surely as night follows day he 
has blackened his country's fair name. A whispered 
story to divert some wench, a hint to some journalist 
of sensations to seek, a version (incriminating in no 
way the teller) sold in political circles, a spasm of 
veracity induced by liquor — and naked truth, or be- 
dizened rumour, is winged and abroad. 

"Pshaw!" you say, good reader, "a most sound 
homily, no doubt, but it is like sermons we have all 
heard, in which the preacher propounds some per- 
versity of dogma or moral theory which no sane 
person ever entertained, and with complacent indigna- 
tion turns his battery of texts upon it. The hypothesis 
is fantastic. No educated man, above all no English- 
man, could be so mentally or morally depraved. We 
do not employ either fools or criminals in our public 
services." Good reader, in war-times, believe me, 
we employ all sorts: and, taking men haphazard, if 
they are to be sailors or soldiers, we give them a 
modicum of training and imnose upon them known 
rules of conduct and of discipline; but, if they are 
to be secret-service agents, we leave them uninstructed 
to their own devices. Why so? In order that we 
may reap the benefit of their crimes until detection 
comes, and then save the honour of our country by 



34 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

disowning them? Is that the cynical principle which 
guides certain guardians of our national honour? 
Why, then, our public services lack not for fools or 
criminals even at their head — criminals by complicity 
in the staining of our honour, or fools to risk the 
wrecking of our prestige. And if that is "unthinkable" 
(oh! blessed word of our politicians' vocabulary!) 
what alternative explanation do you offer, good 
reader, of the fact that no instructions and guidance 
are given? Will you urge that the majority of our 
secret-service agents, if chosen haphazard, will belong 
to neither of the extreme types I have depicted? 
That they will neither be of the conscientious-objector 
breed, maintaining that the state of war cannot modify 
the universal application of any commandment, nor yet 
act as professional devils for whom all moral re- 
straints are abrogated? Very true; but it is just that 
majority composed of men who wish to steer a middle 
course, to whom some instructions in navigation, some 
chart of the rocks and shoals, some opportunity to 
correct the compass of their own judgment, would be 
most welcome. 

Howbeit in fact the principles of morality and of 
expediency by which the secret-service agent is to be 
guided are left to himself to formulate. What then 
shall they be? What restrictions shall he impose 
upon himself in respect of life, liberty, and property, 
and what relaxations of moral obligation shall he 
accept? And must he distinguish between the 
declared enemy and the neutral who is working in the 
enemy's service? Pretty points of ethical theory for 
debate, are they not? but involving ugly issues in 
practice. 



CARRYING ON 35 

Shall we rule out wilful and unprovoked assassina- 
tion without more ado? Very good; I agree, though 
I have met men who do not. But what about 
assassination by way of reprisal? Let me put a case. 
It came to my ears before I had been long in Crete that 
the German Consul in Canea had done me the honour 
to put a price of two thousand francs on my head. 
I do not know whether in fact he had done so, or 
had merely arranged that such a report should reach 
me in the hope of disturbing my equanimity. But, 
assuming for the moment that it was a firm offer, 
should I have been justified in retaliating, with insult 
added to injury, by pricing his head at two hundred? 
My own answer is "No." But carry it a stage 
farther: suppose that the German Consul had not 
only made that offer but had had to pay up : would 
my successor have been justified in reprisals? Prob- 
ably yes, if with his own hand, on the principle that, 
as in a duel, he would be facing the same risk as his 
opponent; probably no, if by means of a hired agent. 
But say that he adopts neither of these courses and 
decides that he will endeavour to capture the German 
Consul for trial before a competent court. He gets 
in touch with a couple of trusty men from the 
mountains (it is no great difficulty in Crete), men 
who have taken a hand in cattle-lifting and have no 
scruples against consul-lifting. He tells them that 
he wants the consul delivered to him alive and not 
unnecessarily damaged. In due time they reappear. 
"Your Excellency," they say, "there was trouble; we 
meant to bring him alive as your Excellency desired, 
but he and his servants fired on us, and we more suc- 
cessfully on them ; and when we saw that he was killed, 



36 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

we thought your Excellency would no longer de- 
sire him." What judgment shall we pass on such 
a case? 

Translated into the atmosphere of civil life, it 
would stand thus: A hired a couple of armed 
ruffians to kidnap an enemy B; B put up a fight, 
and they killed him; inasmuch as they were engaged 
in a felony and came armed to perpetrate it, the 
killing, even if not premeditated, ranks as murder, 
and A who incited them to the felony is some sort 
of accessory. But will the same reasoning hold in 
war-time? Decidedly no: the right verdict then is 
justifiable homicide, or, if you will, death by mis- 
adventure — some verdict in fact which imputes no 
blame. 

So I at any rate should judge the case; and I may 
say that I have acted on my judgment to the extent 
of risking just such an occurrence without qualms. 
There was an important enemy agent whom I wanted. 
A brigand-like but pro-British stalwart called on me 
and offered to shoot him for eight hundred francs. 
"No," said I, "I don't buy corpses." Very good; he 
would kidnap him if I preferred, and, as that would 
mean less risk of trouble afterwards with the gen- 
darmerie, he would take four hundred. I accepted the 
offer; but in fact there were no developments, either 
happy or untoward. My brigand failed of his enter- 
prise, and I captured the said agent by other means. 
Yet obviously kidnapping, however stringent the terms 
of the bargain, is not a game which is usually played 
unarmed, or without risk to life; and, as I say, I 
authorised it without qualm. 

What then is my conclusion? Roughly this, 



CARRYING ON 37 

that the ethics of secret service in war-time do not 
permit the furtherance of schemes whose object is 
homicide, but neither do they prohibit enterprises from 
which the risk of incidental homicide cannot be ex- 
cluded. Otherwise indeed I must have refrained later 
on from inciting to revolution : revolutions mostly in- 
volve some casualties. 

Nor on this principle have I ever felt able to share 
that indignation which our propaganda department, as 
a matter of business perhaps only, sought to arouse 
over certain doings of our enemies in the then neutral 
United States. Is it really dastardly work to destroy 
munition factories, no matter where situated, which 
are supplying your enemy with the means to kill your 
own countrymen? Considerations of humanity, let 
us suppose, weigh with you in devising the means to 
be adopted. You do not cause one overwhelming 
explosion in working hours when the factory is 
crowded, but you start a fire at night time under 
conditions which will give the small staff on duty a 
clear chance to escape. That there will be some risk 
to life is unquestionable; but those who engage in 
war-work have little moral claim to be immune from 
war-risks. Is there any real moral difference then 
between burning down the factory which produces 
munitions, sinking the ship which transports them, and 
bombing the dump where they lie ready for use? So 
far as the sanctity of human life is concerned, it is a 
matter of casuistry, I think, to discriminate. 

But if it is merely urged that such action is a 
violation of the rights of property or of commerce, 
that argument leaves me cold. I know from experi- 
ence that in actual fact there is more pother over 



38 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

consigning a few cases of contraband goods to the 
prize-court than over consigning a few suspect persons 
to an internment-camp; but I am entirely unconvinced 
that this is right, and that property deserves more 
consideration than personal liberty. If on grounds of 
suspicion I may deprive one individual of his liberty, 
may I not on grounds of certainty deprive another of 
his munitions-plant or other property? Moreover in 
any question of property, if the government in whose 
service I work disapproves the damage or loss I have 
occasioned, my action is not irremediable : financial 
compensation can be assessed and given. 

Just one problem more. An enemy agent, pos- 
sessed of information which I want, falls into my 
hands. When I interrogate him, he gives me answers 
some of which I know to be false. To what treat- 
ment may I subject him in order to reduce his 
obstinacy, and make him confess? I presume that 
on the one hand thumb-screws and the like will not 
be advocated: on the other, he has no claim to 
champagne and oysters or a feather-bed. There are 
however many grades of discomfort which intervene 
between the use of torture and mere prison life. 
True, if he is a superior sort of spy, possessed of the 
pluck which that profession in war-time must require, 
no additional discomfort to which he is subjected will 
move him; but if he is some miserable creature, 
working for hire only, and with no heart in the cause 
in which he is employed, a measure of discomfort may 
give results. What measures then are permissible? 
May he be remanded to the cells, which are very hot 
in the Mediterranean summer, for the maximum pe- 
riod for which the captain of a ship can sentence one 



CARRYING ON 39 

of his crew to cells? May his food be reduced to the 
minimum disciplinary limit? If he shams ill, may the 
doctor administer the most nauseous and racking purge 
which he concocts for malingerers? Or, if he is a 
landsman with no stomach for the sea, may he be given 
a day or two's trip in a trawler — a trial which many 
a landsman on service has had to endure in the ordi- 
nary course of duty? 

There is a hidden authority to whose tardy atten- 
tion I commend these and the other questions which I 
have asked. They may perhaps trench on inter- 
national law; they must involve the principles of both 
morality and expediency; and, since honour is not a 
bauble nor prestige a plaything, these principles and 
their modification by the state of war should not have 
been left to the guesswork, and at the mercy, of 
amateurs chosen haphazard and instructed only to 
carry on. 

I am speaking of that which I know. It has 
fallen to my lot to thwart a scheme of political 
assassination by arresting the scoundrel hired to per- 
petrate it, and by a strange chance to cope with at- 
tempted blackmail at a later date in respect of that 
very scheme. You at home who conferred the power 
and furnished the moneys wherewith a misguided 
agent might procure such crimes, what judgment did 
you exercise in your choice of men, what guidance 
and control did you offer or impose? You, masked 
even in each sanctum of your secret labours by an 
alias and sheltered alike from the journalist's pen and 
the politician's tongue, you alone among our defensive 
powers receive and must receive the nation's blind 
trust. Not only some share in England's defence, 



40 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

but also in a very special manner the honour of 
England, is entrusted to you, and you render no 
account of your trusteeship. How did you acquit your- 
selves in this war? Did you scrutinise the character, 
or even test the brains, of those who should administer 
each portion of your trust in foreign lands? Did you 
show them what expediency, which is transient, justi- 
fies, and what honour, which is permanent, disal- 
lows? If not, you proved in part unworthy of the trust 
reposed in you. 

Indeed I think you stand in part self-condemned. 
What defect of your system were you seeking to 
remedy or to conceal, when you set up that absurd 
board of examiners at home, to read and to mark, 
like a schoolboy's exercises, the reports sent home by 
your agents abroad? What possible defect, I ask, 
other than your own ignorance of your appointed 
agents? Had you known them through and through, 
their ability, their industry, their judgment, their 
character and fitness for their posts, then their reports 
should have been valued accordingly. As it was, in 
order to remedy that ignorance, which is the first 
count against you, you instituted a bureaucratic 
travesty of supervision and hired some dozens of ex- 
aminers to assess in marks the prima facie value of 
reports written by agents who, whatever their merits 
or failings, could not but possess one advantage over 
their examiners — some rudimentary knowledge of 
their local subject. 

Will you not, now that peace has come, sweep away 
these foolish artifices? Mask your identity as you 
must, but not your ignorance. Profit by the lesson of 
your past shortcomings. Summon to you the men now 



CARRYING ON 41 

freed from your service, and revise your paper records 
of them in the light of personal knowledge. Never 
has England been so full of men fitted by foreign 
experience to feel for you the pulse of this or that 
nation. Choose from among them those who add to 
experience the temperament, the ability, and the char- 
acter which your service needs. Secure, if you will, 
the appointment of some of them to official stations, 
as ambassadors, ministers, counsellors, in countries 
which they know. Use others, in the guise of tourists, 
students, scientific explorers, commercial agents, to 
keep touch with classes who pass no legation's portal, 
maintaining friendships formed in the comradeship 
of war, sensitive to each country's amour-propre, 
awake to her needs and ambitions, and striving only, 
now that the haven of peace has been so hardly won, 
to moor the nations fast in mutual understanding. 
You need but a handful of chosen men, renewing from 
year to year their ties with each country, to work a 
greater miracle perchance than all the machinery of 
the League of Nations may ever compass. 



CHAPTER II 
THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 

PART I.— AT CROSS PURPOSES 

"Bulgarian spy named Gatchieff passing as Greek 
monk under name Hieronymus left Piraeus by s.s. 
Peloponnesus for Crete. Well educated and good 
linguist. Father attached to German General Staff. 
Medium height, frail appearance, blue eyes, hair and 
beard chestnut, has gold tooth on right side upper 
jaw conspicuous when he smiles. Was caught inside 
French lines Salonica. Escaped, believed with assist- 
ance Greek police. Said to be wearing Bulgarian 
military overcoat under priest's robe." 

So in effect ran the signal from Athens; but, as 
was often the case with cable messages, it had been 
seriously delayed. The enemy messages which at this 
time were still transmitted as freely as our own con- 
tributed without doubt to the congestion. Quite 
possibly Gatchieff's own messages to some associates 
in Crete had on this occasion taken precedence of the 
signal to us : the German Consul in Canea would 
obviously have been warned to facilitate his landing 
and his departure to some place of safety. But, be 
that as it may, the signal was too late. The Pelopon- 
nesus was no longer at sea, where we might have held 
her up and boarded her, but had been anchored some 

two hours at Canea, whither she had proceeded direct; 

42 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 43 

for at this time the arrangements by which all steam- 
ships should call first at Suda for inspection had not 
been made. Gatchieff then had had two hours in 
which to land; it could not be hoped that he would 
take the risk of staying aboard in order to reach any 
other port in the island, whatever his ultimate destina- 
tion might be; and, if he had already landed, our 
hands were tied by the order not to arrest persons 
ashore on the soil of a technically neutral and spuri- 
ously friendly power. 

Of course I made sure of the actual position. 
Agents were instructed to go aboard and see^if any 
person answering the description of Gatchieff were 
still there, and also to get in touch with passengers 
who had landed at Canea and find out about any Greek 
priest who had come ashore with them, and to trace 
his subsequent movements. I soon had the informa- 
tion. A man, who had indulged in mal-de-mer cheek- 
by-jowl with the reverend gentleman, had observed 
the priestly robe disordered by a spasm and a glimpse 
of uniform revealed; while from other gleanings of 
gossip it appeared that the same person had been met 
on landing and had set off to the monastery of the 
Holy Trinity up on the great plateau to the north of 
Suda Bay — at about three hours' distance cross coun- 
try from Suda and somewhat less by road from Canea. 
As I had expected, our bird had flown before the 
notice of his coming had reached us, and had found a 
refuge which in view of our orders seemed to us only 
too safe. 

Now a professional trained spy, such as I took 
Gatchieff to be, is a rare bird, and the trapping of him 
is a form of sport not lacking in zest. Most of the 



44 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

persons whom I had to round up before his coming 
or after, were suspects or enemy informants of second- 
ary importance, comparatively easy to catch though 
affording us certainly some measure of diversion in 
their captivity. There was a German governess, for 
example, whom I arrested aboard a ship which called 
at Suda, and handed over to the custody of an inter- 
preter attached to the arsenal, who lived ashore with 
his family. She and her custodian provided us with 
much entertainment. First came a note in horrid 
German hieroglyphics to complain that certain ar- 
ticles of her underclothing had been crumpled by the 
master-at-arms when her baggage was overhauled, and 
that one (I hesitate to mention which, but I have no 
reason to suppose that my dictionary was at fault in 
the interpretation placed upon the word) one article, 
then, was missing. Next she called my attention to 
the distressing fact that her custodian had no piano, 
hoping perhaps that we should compensate her for the 
missing article (which the master-at-arms never 
found) by the loan of the ward-room piano, and al- 
most hinting that when the day of settlement came the 
German indemnities-claim presented to the vanquished 
British would be swollen by a formidable item for pro- 
fessional damages in respect of her impaired efficiency 
in music. Note No. 3 set forth that her digestive 
organs were suffering by confinement to her jailer's 
house, and requested permission for a daily modicum 
of outdoor exercise. This being reasonable, orders 
were given to the said jailer to take her out for an 
hour's run each day. He himself had already sent me 
a note, primarily touching the cost of the lady's keep, 
but intimating also that "our prisoner has a very nasty 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 45 

temper" ; and I hoped that if her digestive organs were 
stimulated by a daily constitutional this menace to his 
domestic tranquillity might be reduced. 

Unfortunately the lady, far from being grateful for 
this concession, attempted to abuse it, and taking 
advantage of the fact that her custodian was suffering 
from sciatica set off one day at a trot for Canea, and 
would have given him the slip but that she too was 
suffering from corns, or at any rate her shoes pinched; 
so that in the event neither of their tempers was 
improved; nor was a solution of the problem found 
until a call had been made for volunteers from among 
the petty officers to walk out with the lady. The 
response, I am glad to say, did credit to British pluck. 

What became of her in the end, you ask? Why, 
being quite clear that I did not want Germans in 
Crete though I could not demonstrate that she had 
done anything worthy of bonds, I returned her to 
Piraeus whence she had come ; and on her liberation she 
wrote a final note, this time to the S.N.O. telling him 
that before falling into our hands she had been nur- 
tured on unspeakable tales of British barbarity, but 
from the moment of her actual arrest had felt secure, 
having discerned at once beneath the immovable-as- 
iron mask of the devoted-to-stern-duty herr officer the 
clear blue eye of a respectful-for-the-weak-and-innocent 
chivalry. Perhaps I ought not to have pointed out to 
my superior officer that the said iron mask and other 
appurtenances were not his, as he had fondly fancied, 
but mine; but neither of us was in the running with 
her favourite petty officer for whom there was re- 
served a postscript genuinely tender. 

Then again there were an ill-assorted pair of 



46 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

miscreants who chanced to have been caged, for lack 
of other accommodations, in the same gun-turret. One 
was a peculiarly loathsome and degraded Italian al- 
most certainly in Austrian pay; the other a humorous 
and unrepentant ruffian from the south of Crete who 
was known to have three murders to his account and 
had been recently kidnapped by one of our trawlers 
whose captain he had marked down for number four. 
These two were out for an airing one day, seated on 
the deck, under the eye of the quartermaster; and the 
commander with the aid of an interpreter was prob- 
ing the Cretan ruffian's lurid past. He in willing re- 
sponse was narrating with his usual gusto his first 
exploit, namely how he had pushed the head of a light- 
house keeper through the glass and cut his throat on 
the broken edge, when a distraction occurred: there 
was his Italian stable-companion, sickly green in hue, 
edging away from him along the deck and finally roll- 
ing to the very rail in abject terror — a sight which 
tickled vastly our murderer's sense of humour. I 
suspect that the few more days they spent together in 
the turret before they were shipped off for internment 
at Malta were a severer punishment for the Italian 
than any which we had proof enough to inflict. 

Gatchieff promised quite a different form of enter- 
tainment, which lay in the hunting of him; and the 
task was complicated by the fact that there were far 
too many hunters on his track, any one of whom 
might spoil the others' game. This trouble sprang in 
part from the hopeless lack of co-ordination between 
the three British Intelligence services, — naval, mili- 
tary, and unattached, — due to departmental jealousies 
at home and still unremedied when the war ended; 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 47 

and in part from the no less petty mutual mistrust and 
suspicion between the secret services of the different 
Allies, due in some cases to the foolish and ill-tem- 
pered rivalry of particular agents, but fostered also in 
others, as I know, by direct orders from the British 
and other governments concerned. 

In Crete, when we arrived, the situation was typical. 
The Allied Consuls, the only existing agents for intelli- 
gence purposes, were at loggerheads to such a degree 
that, in order to avoid open hostilities among them- 
selves, they had divided the island into three geograph- 
ical spheres of secret service — British, French, and 
Italian — concerning which they kept each other in the 
dark; while the activities of their Russian colleague, 
to whom no geographical area was assigned, remained 
an uncertain, but by no means negligible, quantity. 

Happily our arrival brought about a redistribution 
of duties, and with it a gradual reconciliation. The 
S.N.O. became, by consent of the governments con- 
cerned, the titular head of a joint Allied Intelligence 
Service, in which I, as his representative, co-operated 
with the Consuls. The territorial spheres of influence 
were abolished, and departments of work substituted, 
—upkeep for black-list and dossiers for one, dealings 
in contraband for another, registration and movements 
of sailing-vessels for a third, and so forth, — all infor- 
mation obtained being at the disposal of all. Honest 
collaboration and pooling of results — it sounds, does 
it not, a simple and obvious course for the agents of 
powers engaged in the same great struggle ; yet from 
what I have known and seen in Athens, and from what 
I have heard of Salonica, I reckon it no mean achieve- 
ment that for the eighteen months I was in Crete 



48 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

we worked together in mutual trust and goodwill. 
And indeed the thing is not really so simple. I was 
not so blind to the doings of my Italian and other 
colleagues as to be unaware that they were not always 
allowed to subordinate the post-bellum interests of 
their respective countries to the immediate and com- 
mon interests of the whole Entente. And now when I 
can take into account that abominable secret pact by 
which our government, false to the very principle for 
which we entered the war, bought from another gov- 
ernment as unprincipled as itself the assistance of the 
Italian armies, I am less surprised at the occasional 
digressions of my Italian colleague from the Allies' 
common path of policy than at the large measure of 
loyalty with which he followed it. 

But at the time of Gatchieff's coming our local 
entente cordiale was barely yet inaugurated, and in 
Athens none such was ever attained; whence it re- 
sulted that three several parties at least, unbeknown 
to each other, had set their sleuth-hounds on the trail. 
I knew of three separate pairs, one working for the 
British Corisul and myself, a second believed to belong 
to one of the other Allied Consuls in Canea, and the 
third sent from some Intelligence centre in Athens; 
and besides these there were two or three shadowy 
figures haunting the neighbourhood of the monastery 
who may have been either in friendly or in enemy 
employ — the German Consul would no doubt keep a 
man or two as guards and messengers for Gatehieff. 

Naturally at first these various sets of agents were 
as much occupied with each other's doings as with 
those of Gatehieff. On which side might their several 
competitors be? To whom did they report? And, 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 49 

if on our side, was their mission limited strictly to 
watching and investigation, or did it comprise ab- 
duction? Meanwhile all the information I could ex- 
pect came through to me. I knew when Gatchieff 
paid visits to Canea, and where he went in the town. 
I learnt that he did not play the role of a monk in 
the monastery where he lodged to the extent of at- 
tending chapel with regularity (whence I argued that 
the Prior at any rate was privy to the imposture), but 
preferred to smoke in the grounds. I was supplied 
with descriptions of the various persons circling about 
him on flimsy pretexts, and with surmises as to their 
real aims. 

The first move in the game was made by one of 
my agents. He had cultivated successfully one or 
two of the monks and through them had made the 
acquaintance of Gatchieff, whom he reported to have 
a liking for his glass of wine. He proposed there- 
fore to turn to good account a fete which was shortly 
to be held at the monastery, — it must have been 
Ascension Day or Whitsunday, I think, — when the 
wine would flow freely and some drunkenness on the 
part of the monks and their guests would not be un- 
becoming the occasion. If only Gatchieff would join 
in the merriment, my agent himself and his fellow- 
tracker, preserving a reasonable but not too conspicu- 
ous sobriety, would induce him if possible to accompany 
them for a ride or drive in the evening, which would 
by some means end at Suda. The plan was tried, 
but failed: for Gatchieff when well primed, so they 
reported afterwards, craved neither a country drive 
nor other entertainment, but only to sleep unmolested 
on the floor; but whether in fact Gatchieff upset the 



50 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

scheme by somnolence, or they themselves by averting 
too thoroughly the suspicion which might have been 
aroused by a conspicuous sobriety, I cannot say. The 
Greeks are in general an abstemious people, but they 
make handsome amends on certain religious festi- 
vals. 

A few days had passed when I was approached 
with another plan — this time by a man whom I 
identified as one of the pair of agents from Athens. 
Something then evidently had leaked; tongues 
perhaps had been unduly loosened that Whitsunday; 
for he was aware that it was I who was interested in 
Gatchieff, and that my purpose was to capture him. 
I did not like or trust the man. He pretended to be 
a native of the neighbourhood (wherein he was staking 
too rashly on a foreigner's ignorance, for his speech 
betrayed him to my ear as no Cretan), and repre- 
sented himself as a devoted friend of the Entente and 
in particular of the British. He wished to warn me, 
he said, of a dangerous spy in the neighbourhood, a 
monk named Hieronymus (this was in fact Gatchieff's 
Greek alias), whom he would like to deliver into my 
hands. Any reward for his services and risks he 
would leave to British generosity. He hoped that 
one night before long he would be able to bring 
Hieronymus down to a small inlet, which he indicated 
to me, on the northern shore of Suda Bay some two 
or three miles from our anchorage; and when the 
coup was to come off, he would light a fire on a little 
promontory just beyond the inlet as a signal to us. 
All we need do was to keep a good look-out for the 
signal and send a boat promptly to take delivery of 
the prisoner. 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 51 

As I said, I did not like or trust the man. He had 
lied about his origin, while his references to his love 
of the British and to their generosity were the ordi- 
nary stock-in-trade of the low-class Greek who 
prides himself on the quick-witted cunning of his 
race and believes any blarney good enough for the 
dull Westerner. However the lie might be designed 
merely to cover his intention of getting paid twice for 
the same piece of work — by me as well as by his 
employer in Athens. So I put to him only one 
pertinent question : How could he prevail on 
Hieronymus to accompany him to a lonely point 
of the shore at night? And his answer was distinctly 
quick and good : Would not a spy be interested in a 
British naval base and its defences? Yes, that was 
one possible reading of Gatchieff's residence in our 
neighbourhood. I had not credited him with any great 
concern about the actual ships in our anchorage 
or their movements; the German Consul possessed 
full facilities for observing and reporting these. But 
Gatchieff might have come on some more expert and 
technical mission connected with the defences at the 
entrance to the bay; and the point of the shore where 
we were invited to capture him lay fairly in the line 
between the monastery and that entrance, if by any 
chance he were making an excursion by night to 
inspect our defences. 

The plan was plausible and feasible. I wanted 
Gatchieff, and did not much mind if the rogue who 
secured him for me were paid twice over. So I ac- 
cepted, stipulating only that the friend who would 
go on ahead to light the signal, or such other persons 
as the situation required, should be at hand to assist 



52 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

in putting Hieronymus aboard my boat as soon as I 
brought her inshore. My orders forbade me, as I 
have said, to arrest any one on land, or indeed, as far 
as might be, within the three-mile limit; but ob- 
viously the latter restriction would not apply to an 
enemy agent found aboard a British craft even within 
a three-yard limit. Strict attention to orders will 
often reveal a loophole. 

The S.N.O. having approved my proposal, the 
necessary arrangements were made. The picket-boat 
was to keep steam and stand by all night with a dinghy 
ready astern; a sharp look-out was kept for the 
expected signal; four marines were warned to be ready 
to report on the quarter-deck at any hour; and an 
R.N.R. officer was told off to command the picket- 
boat and to comply with my requirements as far as he 
could. 

For two or three nights it looked like lost labour, 
and my sleep was undisturbed; and one more night 
had come and I had, just turned in, when the message 
came from the bridge: "Fire, sir, just lighted on the 
north side of the bay." Time was more important 
than appearances, so I slipped on a pair of bedroom 
shoes, and a raincoat over my pyjamas, and ran up on 
deck. The S.N.O. , who had not turned in when the 
signal came, was already there, and was making things 
lively because the marines had not yet appeared. I 
reckoned that I had been right to sacrifice etiquette 
(though he was a stickler for it, as the whole ship's 
company well knew) to emergency; and so, being un- 
able to salute for lack of head-gear, merely reported 
myself present — unclothed but in my right mind. 
His apparently inconsequent reply, "Damn those 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 53 

marines, why aren't they here?" implicitly condoned 
my intention of conducting a raid in pyjamas. 

Not much time was wasted really. We took the 
picket-boat down the middle of the bay and then 
round in a sweep towards the fire, which was now 
burning low, and stopped in a dark patch of shadow 
close under the promontory. Then the dinghy was 
brought alongside and with a couple of marines I took 
my place in her. Thus we waited, listening, and, as 
far as the dark allowed, watching, for any movement 
ashore. Presently a cigarette-end showed faintly, and 
we made out a man coming down to the little inlet — 
but one man only; it looked as if something had gone 
wrong. Telling the other two marines, who were left 
in the picket-boat, to keep him covered with their 
rifles, I took the dinghy quietly closer. Then he hailed 
us: if there was a British officer there, he said, he had 
a note for him. I told him to remain where he was 
and we would come in close and get it. In taking it I 
could see him clearly enough to be sure that he was 
not the agent who had approached me, and I decided 
not to strike a light and read the note at once — we 
should have presented too good a target for any pos- 
sible accomplices ashore — but to return with it to 
the picket-boat and read it under cover in the 
cabin. 

The note purported to be from the agent, and was 
written in French. Our scheme was working nicely, 
it said, until Hieronymus had twisted his ankle coming 
down the mountain-side. The man who had lighted 
the fire and was bringing this note was the writer's 
only assistant, and two of them could not carry a dis- 
abled man down the ravine to the shore. Could I 



54 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

come up the path to the top of the ravine with one or 
two men to help? If so, would I write a line on the 
back and let the bearer return with it at once so that 
they might know whether to wait or what to do? 

The story in itself had no obvious flaws, and it 
would certainly be annoying if a mishap of that sort 
was to baulk us of our chance. But I did not like 
the French: it was good French, and though my 
agent might possibly speak some, as many Greeks of 
the town do, it was unlikely that he would write it 
with grammatical accuracy. I doubted indeed whether 
he could even speak it, inasmuch as he had conducted 
his negotiations with me in his native tongue, and few 
Greeks who know a foreign language miss an oppor- 
tunity of showing off to a foreigner. Moreover, 
another small point but perhaps significant, why did 
he ask for my reply in writing? His use of French 
in his own note might be attributed to a doubt whether 
I could read or write Greek although he knew I could 
speak it; for the uneducated are apt to rate reading 
and writing as a higher linguistic achievement than 
speech; but he knew quite well that I could send a 
verbal reply in Greek. 

If I assumed then that he was playing me false, 
what was his game? A ruse apparently to decoy me 
ashore at a lonely spot on a dark night. He and his 
companion who had brought the note would have 
plenty of time to take their posts at point-blank range 
behind some rock commanding the ravine-path. Yes, 
and afterwards a piece of documentary evidence could 
be produced, as having been found near the spot, 
showing that I had come to grief in the course of some 
unlawful adventure. This interpretation fitted all the 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 55 

facts of the situation without exception, whereas the 
other, the assumption that the agent was honest, 
involved those difficulties respecting his note and my 
answer. Probably then Gatchieff was not there at all; 
his name, and his name only, had been used as a bait; 
the note had been written in advance by the agent's 
real employer who might know French sufficiently well, 
— who certainly would, if par exemple he were the 
German Consul in Canea, who was reported to have 
set a price on my head; in fact I was not hunting 
Gatchieff that night, as I had supposed, but was being 
hunted by some person at whose identity I could only 
guess. 

So I summed the position up, and, if I was right, 
that rocky climb up the ravine was not for me. My 
orders in any case forbade me to land, and there was 
not a good enough case for breaking them. Besides 
I was wearing bedroom slippers. 

However I did not want to miss any reasonable 
chance of securing Gatchieff if my calculations hap- 
pened to be wrong. So I gave the messenger a verbal 
answer to take back, that I had no men to spare from 
my boat for the work, but that if the writer and his 
companion could make shift to carry Hieronymus 
down, they should be well rewarded for their extra 
exertions, and they would find me waiting for them. 
This done, I remained with my two marines in the 
dinghy, and sent the picket-boat back with a report of 
the hitch in the proceedings and a request that she 
might return to me and remain at my disposal till 
dawn. And the upshot of it all? Just nil. I sat in 
the dinghy till the picket-boat returned, and was rather 
cold; I had an uncomfortable nap in the cabin of the 



56 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

picket-boat, where it was at any rate warmer; and 
when dawn was breaking we returned to our ship and 
were glad of some cocoa. Only one thing of further 
bearing on this episode occurred, namely that Gatchieff 
was reported as having visited Canea next morning, 
and he was not limping. As for the agent, whose 
scheme I could not but admire, I saw him no more; but 
the evidence tended to show that he had been sent from 
Athens by either the British or the French Intelligence 
Service and had been bought either previously or on 
arrival at Canea by the enemy. 

My next visitor interested in the affair was a 
genuine Cretan with a genuinely Cretan code of ethics. 
He came straight to the point: he would shoot 
Gatchieff for eight hundred francs. That proposal 
I turned down, explaining that I wanted him alive, 
and should not pay for him dead. The tariff for 
kidnapping only was at half rates, and that I accepted. 
But nothing came of this either. 

Nothing, that is, came of it directly; but perhaps 
this and the previous affairs all contributed to the final 
event. 

PART II.— THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES 

Gatchieff was obviously well aware by now that, 
as the Psalmist has it, many dogs were come about 
him, and he appeared to be getting uneasy. The 
enemy consuls in Canea could not do much to reassure 
him, for they with less cause were equally uneasy: in 
fact they had for some time been lifting up their eyes 
unto the hills to the south of Canea, as I subsequently 
learnt from copies of the Austrian Consul's corre- 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 57 

spondence with Athens and Vienna when I effected an 
entrance into his vacant premises, — (No, gentlemen of 
the Foreign Office, there was nothing politically 
irregular; there was nothing to mark the building as 
a consulate consigned to the custody of a neutral 
power, — no flag flying, — I had seen to that, — no 
escutcheon over the door, — I knew who possessed that 
trophy; so it was merely an ex-consulate), — and 
about this time those hills so attracted the consuls 
that they decided to flee even as a bird out of the 
snare of the fowler. In short they migrated in 
disguise and at dead of night to a mountain village 
round which they posted a chain of brigands who 
watched in vain for our coming. I can hardly wonder 
at their uneasiness, though it went to comic lengths. 
Had they been in our place and we in theirs, no self- 
denying ordinance would have handicapped them. 
But actually on land, whether in Canea or elsewhere, 
thanks to our orders, they were safe. 

Fortunately they did not know this, neither did 
Gatchieff, and his uneasiness too, as I then read the 
situation, reached a point at which he resolved to seek 
a safer refuge. Reports had been received more than 
once that he was meditating a move to Tembeli 
monastery in the central mountains of Crete, full 
three days' journey from his present abode; and then 
one day I received information from Canea that he 
had drawn four thousand francs at one of the banks 
and had subsequently been closeted with the Chief of 
Police. If the two events were to be interpreted in 
conjunction, the Chief of Police was now a richer man 
and Gatchieff would receive a gendarmerie escort for 
his journey. The probable route therefore, and the 



58 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

police-areas through which it would pass, required 
investigation. 

The first stage of the route, which involved the 
now-or-never of any possible plan of seizure, presented 
two possibilities. Either he would take boat, cut 
across from the north to the south shore of Suda 
Bay, most probably at night, well to the eastward of 
our anchorage, and there strike the main road towards 
Retimo and Candia; or else he must make a circuit to 
the west by land round the head of the bay, and so 
pass through or near Suda village to gain that same 
road. The former course could be made very 
precarious by means of searchlights and vigilant 
patrolling; and I doubted whether he would risk so 
much merely to shorten his route. The circuitous 
land route was far more likely and presented the now 
familiar difficulty of arresting only at sea a person who 
would not leave the land. 

As regards police-areas, I found that it was the 
superintendent at Suda who controlled practically the 
whole of the country covered by the first day's stage, 
and it might be presumed that he therefore would be 
ordered to furnish the escort. This was a point in 
our favour; for in a village like Suda it should be far 
easier to learn which gendarmes had been told off for 
a two days' absence on escort work than in a town of 
the size of Canea. And so it proved; for presently 
my Suda agent, by dint of much sitting in the cafe 
favoured by the local police, brought me the names of 
two who had orders to proceed to the monastery of 
the Holy Trinity on the morrow. 

One of the two he knew personally, and could 
recommend as a shrewd and strenuous fellow, who 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 50 

might be ready to do us a service and would carry 
his companion with him. Time being pressing, my 
agent had even approached him with a hypothetical 
case, asking whether he would be willing to assist a 
prisoner, in whom the British were interested, to 
escape from prison; and he had been quite open to 
consider such a project. I arranged therefore a time 
and place at which I could meet him unobserved, and 
he was punctual at our rendez-vous. 

Judging by the man's bearing — and an Intelligence 
Officer frequently must act on a rapid judgment of 
the sort — I accepted my agent's estimate of him, and 
opened the subject at once. "I am told," I said, 
"that you are a good friend of the English. What 
about the man who is going with you on duty 
to-morrow? Is he on our side, too?" "Yes, so far 
as sympathies go, my companion would desire to 
serve your Excellency; but he is a poor man, the 
father of a large family, who scarce earns them a crust 
in the sweat of his brow; he cannot afford to under- 
take any service which might get him into trouble 
with his superiors. He will need fair compensation 
for any risk he may take. For myself I ask nothing; 
I have neither wife nor children, and am at your 
Excellency's disposal." This of course was a facon 
de parler, like that of a Jew who should have a friend 
on whom he might prevail to make an advance if 
the rate of interest would compensate for the lack 
of security — a recognised gambit in negotiations. 
"Suppose then," I said, "that in the course of escort- 
ing the man whom you two are being sent to-morrow 
to fetch, I should ask you to make some error as the 
result of which he fell into my hands, at what figure 



60 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

do you think your friend would value that risk?" 
"He would need much money," he replied; "our or- 
ders are strict and given to us even in writing." 
"May I see them?" I said. He was not bluffing, he 
had them in his pocket, and very interesting they were. 
The two gendarmes were to cross by boat the next 
afternoon from Suda to the north shore of the bay, 
and then proceed to the monastery of the Holy Trin- 
ity, where they would sleep. On the following 
morning they were to escort a monk named Hierony- 
mus by land, taking the mountain path, round the head 
of the bay and so into Suda village, where a carriage 
would be awaiting them, by which they were to proceed 
at once along the Retimo road, and to complete the 
first day's stage at Vamos, where a fresh escort would 
be provided. 

"Very good," I said; "suppose that there were 
a delay in starting on this long day's journey, and 
that, to save time and reach Vamos according to 
orders, you were to cross the bay by boat instead of 
walking right round the end of it; or suppose, if you 
like, that the monk whom you are escorting is induced 
to express the intention of crossing by boat: if the 
boat happened to be held up by me for contravening 
the British harbour-regulations, and the party in 
it were taken aboard the Senior Officer's ship for 
inquiries, what sum would fairly compensate your 
friend for any trouble into which he might get?" 
His friend might get into serious trouble; he might 
even be dismissed the force; and he was a poor man, 
the father of a large family, who scarce earned them a 
crust in the sweat of his brow, poor devil. Two 
thousand francs would not be too much. 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 61 

Now it may sound absurd, but I could not raise 
two thousand francs, or even the half of that sum. 
Two thousand was at this time precisely the monthly 
amount which our penny-wise and pound-foolish 
administrators allowed for the whole British Intelli- 
gence Service in Crete. An island over a hundred and 
fifty miles long; a coast-line, with plenty of bays and 
inlets open to enemy submarines, little short of five 
hundred miles at a guess; a population of some three 
hundred and fifty thousand, reputed on apostolic 
authority as "always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies" — 
the two first characteristics at any rate being likely to 
cause trouble to an Intelligence Officer no less than to 
a missionary bishop; two towns, Canea and Candia, 
of considerable size and of mixed inhabitants includ- 
ing several thousands of Mohammedans in sympathy 
with Turkey; and an allowance of, say, £80 a month 
out of which to pay agents' salaries and all the 
expenses of obtaining and transmitting information in 
a country devoid of railways, ill-supplied with tele- 
graph or telephone lines, precarious in its postal sys- 
tem, and possessing a total mileage of carriage roads 
(outside the towns) which would barely reach three 
figures; so that to send a message twenty miles over 
mountain paths and get an answer might involve the 
expense of a two days' journey for a man and a mule. 
It would be quite equally feasible to run a complete In- 
telligence Service on £80 a month in Ulster or Mun- 
ster, which at least possess some facilities of communi- 
cation, and are no more turbulently disposed than 
Crete. 

Add to this that no effective addition could be 
made to Intelligence funds out of the paymaster's 



62 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

naval resources. The maximum sum which a post- 
captain is authorised to expend at his own discretion 
out of naval funds as a reward for information 
received or other similar service is ten pounds. He 
may be fit to command a ship worth two millions of 
money, and to be responsible for a ship's company 
numbering a thousand souls, but my Lords of the 
Treasury or Admiralty will not trust his judgment 
beyond a ten-pound note. Penny-wise indeed with a 
meagre penn'orth of wisdom! 

So there was nothing to do but pooh-pooh my 
gendarme's demand, — albeit a dangerous spy would 
clearly be cheap at the price, — and to belittle the 
value which I set upon him. Of course I should 
have bargained in any case as a matter of principle, in 
compliance with the Greek mode of business; but the 
bargaining was now serious. I offered four hundred 
francs. He refused emphatically; his friend was a 
poor man, the father of a large family, who scarce 
earned them a crust in the sweat of his brow; he 
could not risk his livelihood for a paltry four hundred 
francs. Well, I would make it four hundred for the 
person of the monk with a bonus for any papers useful 
to me which he might be carrying; they could trust 
me like any other British officer to deal fairly with 
them. No, he would not look at it; two thousand was 
the figure. 

Now by all the rules of the game it was his turn 
to drop a hundred or two by way of bridging the gap 
between our starting prices; and I did not like his 
persistence in a figure which I had not the funds to 
pay. But an idea struck me; perhaps it was my own 
mention of the papers Gatchieff might be carrying 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 63 

which suggested it: what about the four thousand 
francs that Gatchieff had drawn at the bank before his 
interview with the Chief of Police? Say that that 
interview had cost him a thousand or even two; the 
balance in hand would still satisfy my gendarme, and, 
British funds being unavailable, why not employ those 
of the enemy? I determined to try this new tack. 

"Look here," I said, "I am going to be quite 
frank with you, and make you at the same time a 
sporting offer. The man you are going to escort is 
not a Greek monk but a Bulgarian spy," — the Greek, 
be it remembered, does not love the Bulgarian, so I 
could appeal to my man's patriotism as well as his 
cupidity. "Two days ago this Bulgarian drew four 
thousand francs out of the bank; he then saw your 
Chief of Police; and, as you know from your orders, 
measures have been taken to provide him with a safe 
escort. You know better than I how much he will 
have paid to your Chief for that; perhaps a quarter 
of the four thousand, certainly not more than half. 
He has a three days' journey to make, and the 
superintendents in each area will want a round sum, 
apart from the expenses of food, lodging, and convey- 
ance, which also he must pay. What will you each 
get for a day's work escorting him? Ten francs 
apiece? Fifteen? Twenty? You would be well 
content with even ten, while your superintendents were 
pocketing hundreds. Now I don't want his money; 
I want him and any papers on him. I make over 
all money he is carrying to you. There is my 
offer then: four hundred francs for him; a bonus for 
any papers at my valuation ; and the unknown but large 
sum which he will have with him." 



64 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

Well, he thought that his poor friend might be led 
to accept that in the actual interest of his large family, 
and to provide bread for them with less sweat of his 
brow; and I assured him that I thought so too, if 
only he would use his persuasive powers over his 
poor friend. And so we passed to details. It would 
be well, I suggested, that they should be an hour or 
two late in leaving the monastery, and should take the 
wrong path as soon as they were out of sight — a path 
that would lead them down to a spot which I pointed 
out to him on the northern shore of the bay. They 
would then be full three miles out of their course, 
and to turn westward and tramp right round the head 
of the bay in the heat of a June forenoon would be a 
depressing prospect. At the spot indicated however 
a small sailing-boat would be lying, and the man in 
her would be open to an offer to take them across. 
If the Bulgarian himself should suggest it or accept 
the suggestion, there would be no need for violence; 
but, should force be necessary, they must see that he 
did not destroy any papers en route. The rest I 
would arrange. 

As for clearing the gendarmes of any suspicion of 
complicity in the eyes of their superiors, I proposed 
that I should detain them and the boatman together 
with the Bulgarian as prisoners for a few days on 
board, as if they were implicated in some offence 
against us; and the gendarme agreed that he and his 
companion would have no objection to a few days' 
idleness as guests of the British Navy. 

The next afternoon I saw them set forth on their 
outward journey in a boat from Suda village, passing 
quite near my ship. That gave me an idea. Our 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 65 

harbour regulations defined the area of the British 
anchorage and forbade boats unlicensed by us to pass 
through it. Their boat was not so licensed. Why 
not write a formal letter to the Prefect of Canea, pro- 
testing against this infringement of our regulations, 
and intimating that it was only our unwillingness to 
interfere with the local police which had restrained 
us from detaining the boat and arresting its occupants? 
Apposite, and true too : nothing would have induced 
me to arrest those two gendarmes yet. And, just as 
a precaution against our protest putting the authorities 
on their guard in this particular affair, our letter could 
be sent via the British Consul, as if to enhance the 
formality, and he could be requested not to deliver 
it until he should receive a telephone message from 
us next morning. 

The S.N.O. approving, I composed a courteous but 
firm protest, in French as more ceremonious, and 
dispatched it to the Consul with the necessary instruc- 
tions; and all was thus in train for the next day's 
coup. 

There were a good many pairs of glasses brought 
to bear that forenoon on the little bay from which the 
fateful sailing-craft was due to emerge, and more than 
one false alarm was given. But shortly after noon 
the right boat was sighted with a priest and two 
gendarmes as passengers in her. She was bearing 
down nicely towards Suda village, where the carriage 
would be waiting, and must pass fairly close to our 
anchorage: my gendarmes did not mean to be over- 
looked by steering too wide a course. As she came 
near, I ran alongside with a guard of marines in the 
picket-boat, and demanded the boatman's reason for 



66 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

approaching us so nearly, in contravention of the 
harbour regulations, and, feigning dissatisfaction with 
his reply, expressed my regret to the occupants that 
I must take them all on board for further inquiries. 
They were transferred to the picket-boat under charge 
of the marines, and their boat taken in tow. 

Gatchieff was admirable. I have no notion at 
what point in the proceedings he became certain that 
I knew his identity, or that the gendarmes had been 
in league with me. He gave his name as Hieronymus; 
bore himself as an ordinary Greek monk; submitted 
to being stripped and searched as an inconvenience 
only, to which any traveller in war-time might chance 
to be subjected; and awaited with excellently Oriental 
patience such interrogation as he might be asked to 
undergo. But he must have experienced some dis- 
comfiture of mind over the turn of events, well before 
I held up his boat. For in the first place he had no 
longer any money on him, not a sou; and the trans- 
ference of it from his pockets into the possession of 
the gendarmes must have taken place ashore before 
they entered the boat. For the gendarmes were 
searched too — (they were supposed to be our prisoners 
and it is best to keep up appearances thoroughly so as 
to deceive all alike, whether friend, foe, or neutral, 
who are not actually in the secret, lest an indiscreet 
tongue drop unwittingly some hint) — and the search 
revealed only a few odd francs; but as they had 
in no way the look of disappointed men, I presumed 
that the speculation, or if you will peculation, which I 
had suggested to them had borne fruit, and that those 
fruits were safely garnered in some cranny of the rocks 
on the northern shore which they could revisit at 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 67 

leisure. They reckoned of course, as indeed they 
told me a propos of the payment due from me, that 
they would be searched by their own authorities for 
any evidence of bribery as soon as I restored them to 
liberty, and doubtless they had preferred to adopt 
their own methods of safeguarding the booty derived 
from Gatchieff. 

Gatchieff therefore, as he sat with them in the 
boat, must have had to make up his mind whether he 
had fallen into the hands of a couple of ordinary 
brigands who would dump him at some out-of-the- 
way spot whence they could escape into the mountains 
with their plunder, or if the plot were farther-reaching 
and involved the delivery of him into our hands. As 
he watched the course steered, he must have decided 
for the second alternative : for when he was searched 
no papers were found on him; but, when for thorough- 
ness' sake rather than with much hope we searched 
the boat as well, a card and a letter were found 
beneath the bottom-boards. They were not of first- 
rate importance, though they proved his relations with 
the German Consul; but how he contrived to hide 
them there undetected by his two companions, who 
knew that I would pay for such papers, I cannot say. 
He must have possessed some sleight of hand as well 
as a good nerve. 

Probably then he had summed up the situation 
correctly before ever he was brought aboard our ship; 
and certainly he had done so before he had been with 
us long; for when I remarked to him, in the course 
of an interrogation, a propos of his having no money 
on him, that Greek priests apparently embarked on 
long journeys without taking much thought for the 



68 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

morrow, there was a distinct gleam of humour in his 
eyes as he replied that taking thought for the morrow 
sometimes proved a source of present embarrassment. 
But in fact, whether for to-morrow or for to-day, he 
was quick and shrewd in taking thought; the gold 
tooth by which we were to identify him was not there, 
but a perfect and natural row. He must have worn 
in Athens or at Salonica a gold sheath over one tooth 
as a purposely conspicuous and misleading identifica- 
tion-mark, and have discarded it, possibly in the boat 
when he guessed what was coming, in a last attempt 
to puzzle us. 

As for his mission in Crete, the interrogation re- 
vealed nothing, nor did I anticipate that it would. 
He was a brave man, who carried his life in his hands, 
and would have died, if need be, with a lie on his lips 
and his honour clean. I regretted that he was not on 
our side, and was glad to hear later tha't he was not 
shot for whatever he had been caught doing at Salon- 
ica, but was merely interned. But in the course of a 
few months I was able to guess what his mission had 
been, in Athens perhaps first and then in Crete. He 
probably negotiated the surrender of Fort Roupel by 
the Greeks to the Bulgarians. The colonel who had 
been in command of the Greek troops in Canea during 
Gatchieff's sojourn in the neighbourhood was shortly 
afterwards transferred to the Greek army in the 
Salonica area and actually carried out that surrender. 
And when subsequently during the revolution in 
Crete we took temporary custody of the military head- 
quarters in Canea, I found, among a mass of papers 
in the commanding officer's safe, two notes of the 
Bulgarian paper currency, which had probably slipped 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 69 

out of some packet formerly deposited there. They 
certainly did not belong to Greek army funds. So I 
infer that Gatchieff had fulfilled his mission before I 
caught him; and possibly his interrupted journey to 
the monastery of Tembeli was only a first step towards 
leaving Crete quietly for some other scene of activity. 
Anyhow the hunting of Gatchieff was finished, 
and it remained only to play out the comedy with the 
Prefect and the police. The telephone message to the 
British Consul had not been forgotten, and, at the 
hour that Gatchieff was being brought on board, the 
Prefect of Canea was reading our protest against the 
irregular conduct of his gendarmes. A second letter 
from me reached him that same evening, delivered 
with greater expedition. The S.N.O. had the honour 
to inform him that the incident against which he 
had entered a formal protest on the previous day 
had been repeated, and he had taken the measures 
which he had then foreshadowed. An unlicensed 
boat containing two gendarmes and a priest had been 
observed passing through the area of the British 
anchorage, and had by his orders been brought along- 
side for examination. In the course of this, papers 
had been found indicating that the priest, the soi-disant 
priest, was none other than a Bulgarian spy, whom we 
had believed to be in the neighbourhod; while the 
gendarmes, who said they belonged to the Suda force, 
professed that they had been detailed to escort him on 
a journey. As however they had been arrested in the 
company of the Bulgarian spy within the British 
anchorage, they lay under the grave suspicion of 
aiding and abetting esp'ionnage, and must be detained 
by us until Monsieur the Prefect, as representing 



70 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

a neutral and friendly government animated by senti- 
ments which we reciprocated, should have caused in- 
quiries to be made into so regrettable an incident and 
should have furnished us, as we were persuaded he 
would desire to do, either with a satisfactory explana- 
tion of the occurrence or with an assurance of the due 
severity with which he would punish the offenders. 
And so with a request that he would accept the 
expression of the S.N.O.'s most distinguished con- 
sideration the letter ended. I did not think fit to add 
yet that the written orders relating to the escort were 
now in my possession; but naturally I had taken 
custody of them : they would have been only an 
embarrassment to the gendarmes if they should wish 
to plead later that they had not realised the full 
importance of proceeding by land, and to me they 
were useful as documentary evidence in reserve. 
Meanwhile our silence on the subject would raise 
awkward doubts in our opponents' minds and confuse 
counsel. 

The Prefect's first reply was a formal expression of 
regret at the infringement of the harbour regulations 
on both occasions; a perfectly accurate statement that 
he had not had time to issue instructions in the sense 
of our first letter before the second arrived; and a 
demand for the immediate release of the two 
gendarmes. Our reply was "nothing doing" — only 
more courteously and ceremoniously expressed. His 
next communication informed us that, as far as he 
could ascertain, the priest was a genuine monk belong- 
ing to Mount Athos (he had in fact been quartered 
there, in the Bulgarian monastery, before the French 
caught him within their lines at Salonica). He had 



THE HUNTING OF GATCHIEFF 71 

been stopping, said the Prefect, at the monastery of 
the Holy Trinity, and, being under the impression 
that Crete was a somewhat turbulent country, had 
asked for an escort to accompany him to the monastery 
of Tembeli. His intention had been to go all the 
way by land, and orders had been issued to his escort 
accordingly. It must be presumed that he had wished 
to shorten the first stage of his journey by sailing 
across the bay; and, if through ignorance he and his 
escort had passed too near to the British anchorage in 
so doing, the Prefect trusted that we would accept 
his reiterated expression of regret together with his 
assurance that there could have been no intention of 
espionnage. He therefore requested that the gen- 
darmes might be allowed to return to duty without 
delay. 

It was time now to show a more conciliatory 
spirit, especially as we did not want the gendarmes on 
board indefinitely; and I consulted them as to the 
terms on which I should consent to their release. 
Were they anxious, I asked them, to remain in Suda, 
and would they object to being transferred to some 
other station? No, they would both willingly move, 
— the poor man, the father of the large family, even 
gladly, since his wife found that the presence of the 
British ships made vegetables dear. Very well, then; 
I would inform the Prefect that, accepting his view 
that they had been guilty of an indiscretion only, we 
would not press for too severe a penalty, but in our 
own interests must ask from him an assurance that 
these two men should not continue to be employed in 
the neighbourhood of Suda. 

So I composed my answer. The S.N.O. desired 



n TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

to express his thanks to Monsieur the Prefect for the 
solicitude which he had evinced in inquiring into an 
unfortunate incident. As regards the soi-disant priest, 
he believed the Prefect was right in saying that he had 
previously been on Mount Athos, where however he 
begged to remind the Prefect there was a Bulgarian 
monastery as well as the more celebrated Greek institu- 
tions; and the grave suspicions against the priest were 
therefore by no means dissipated. With regard to the 
gendarmes, a copy of the orders given to them had 
been found upon them, and it confirmed the statement 
in the Prefect's letter, that they had been instructed to 
go by land. It was possible therefore to accept the 
Prefect's conclusion that they had erred through 
ignorance or carelessness only, and were guilty not of 
abetting a crime, but merely of an indiscretion. In 
our own interests however, no less than as an example 
to the gendarmerie and other inhabitants of Suda, 
we must insist that such an indiscretion should not 
go wholly unpunished, and we could consent to the 
Prefect's request for the release of the two men con- 
cerned only on the condition that they should be 
transferred at once to some police-area sufficiently 
distant from Suda et qu'ils soient remplaces par des 
personnes donees d'une prudence moins douteuse. 

And so it came to pass that the more capable of 
the two gendarmes was happily transferred to a 
seaport where I had need of an agent, and the poor 
man, the father of a large family, who scarce earned 
them a crust in the sweat of his brow, to a village 
where vegetables were cheaper. 



CHAPTER III 
THE RED BROTHERHOOD 

Another Bulgarian ! Crete seemed to have an attrac- 
tion for them. The French Vice-Consul at Candia 
as well as one of our agents there had reported 
the landing of an enemy agent, believed to be a Bul- 
garian, from a sailing-vessel at a small harbour some 
twenty miles east of Candia; and here was the 
British Intelligence Service at Athens too making 
anxious inquiries whether we knew of the incident and 
had traced the man. 

Now the hunting of Gatchieff had been all very 
well, and could be interlarded in the routine of daily 
duties such as boarding ships and the other dissipa- 
tions of an Intelligence Officer which I have sketched. 
For Gatchieff had been considerate enough to camp 
out in the neighbourhood, and the agents who were 
watching him could come aboard or meet me ashore 
to report progress and receive instructions. But it 
was quite another matter to direct the operations of a 
spy-hunt sixty miles away from our base at Suda. 
Confidential information and orders could not be 
passed safely by telephone; and code telegrams were 
not accepted by the Greek offices for transmission 
inside Crete. I had indeed constructed a code which 
permitted the undetected transmission of certain 
limited information, chiefly about the sighting of sub- 

73 



74 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

marines, under the guise of a plain-language com- 
mercial message, in which the prices quoted, for 
example, indicated the position on a squared map, the 
commodities named represented submarines, mines, 
spies, and other such objects, and the phrasing, with 
a variety of qualification provided, had its equivalent 
interpretation in terms of their movements and doings. 
Thus, to take a simple case, "I can offer you — one 
ton of beef — delivered free — at 5 francs 75 the oke," 
might read when decoded, "There has been sighted — 
a submarine — proceeding east — in the section of the 
squared map where the vertical column 5 cuts the 
horizontal cross-column 75." But a code of this 
kind does not, admit of indefinite extension, even if 
local agents possessed the intelligence to use it. And 
when an agent manages to code one word only out of 
an important message, and is capable of telegraphing, 
as one redoubtable lady-agent once did, "Piece of 
beef believed German sighted on surface at noon in 
Messara Bay, steering west," you realise that the 
mysteries of coding and decoding may baffle the agent 
more seriously than the result of his efforts will baffle 
the telegraph-clerk. Communications therefore being 
too hazardous for delicate negotiations, the Vice- 
Consuls at Candia were asked to undertake the 
investigation and to keep us informed of any 
developments. 

The French Vice-Consul was the first on the track. 
A young Greek of his acquaintance, he told us, a 
native of Candia, by name Timothy Jannarakis (I give 
a wrong name for obvious reasons to this as to certain 
other persons in these stories), had made a statement 
to him of immense interest. While attending the 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 75 

University at Athens, this young man had been in 
love with a woman who was now the confidential 
typist of Baron Schenk. (Baron Schenk, let me 
explain, was a completely unscrupulous Hun supplied 
with unlimited funds for directing the secret service 
of the enemy in Athens; and the lady, whose name 
was correctly given, enjoyed then and afterwards con- 
siderable notoriety in the political and diplomatic 
circles of Athens.) Though now promoted to the 
society of Baron Schenk, this lady, so Timothy 
averred, entertained tender recollections of himself, 
and was working secretly for his advancement. She 
had learnt from Schenk that a certain Bulgarian was 
being dispatched on a secret mission to Crete, had 
made the Bulgarian's acquaintance, and had advised 
him on his arrival in Crete to get in touch with a 
most capable young man, named Timothy Jannarakis, 
who knew Crete thoroughly and would be eager to 
help him. Meanwhile she had privately warned her 
young lover, whose devotion to the Entente she well 
knew, to turn his introduction to the Bulgarian, if the 
latter should take her advice and seek him out, to 
good account, as a step towards getting a confidential 
position worthy of his talents in the service of the 
Allies. 

The young man had already met the Bulgarian 
and established friendly relations with him; and as a 
first proof of his goodwill towards us, for which in 
any case the Vice-Consul himself could vouch, had 
obtained a snapshot of our enemy visitor which was 
enclosed with the report. The photograph showed a 
venerable grey-bearded face; though not possessing 
clear enough detail to ensure recognition, it was of 



76 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

definite value. A man well past fifty, apparently; 
but, since the report went on to add that his landing- 
place had been correctly given and that he had 
traversed on foot the twenty miles of mountain-paths 
to Candia in the course of the night, his age clearly 
had not impaired his vigour. It was hoped that there 
would be further news shortly as the intimacy of rela- 
tions developed. 

The next report was triumphant. Timothy had 
so insinuated himself into the Bulgarian's confidence 
as to be admitted a member of a band of twelve, 
known as the Red Brotherhood, an enemy company 
of vowed assassins. A vacancy had occurred through 
the death of one member, and Timothy had been 
selected to fill it. Members were being dispatched 
singly or in pairs to the chief countries of the Entente 
to assassinate leading statesmen and generals, among 
whom Joffre and Kitchener had been particularly 
mentioned. Timothy had taken the oath of admission 
— of which he had a copy in some code as a certificate 
of membership — and had been entrusted with the code 
itself. The names of members of the brotherhood 
were not divulged to each other, but known only to 
their chief. It appeared therefore that the Bulgarian 
who had approved and admitted Timothy was himself 
the chief, as indeed his relations with Schenk rendered 
probable. But this was not all. Timothy had already 
proved his resource and daring by abstracting from 
the Bulgarian's lodging one or two papers written in 
code. Here however perplexity began. Though they 
had the key, they could not work out the meaning. 
The writing of the coded documents was very rough 
and hasty. An expert was wanted. 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 77 

Now we had no expert knowledge on tap, neither 
did we know into what language the contents of the 
coded documents would need to be decanted; but 
rumination over these problems was cut short by 
another report, which, true to the reputation of bad 
news, had travelled fast, and pressed close on the heels 
of its jubilant precursor. The triumph had been short- 
lived; disaster had befallen; deadly peril threatened. 

The documents stolen by Timothy had been 
missed, and suspicion had fallen upon him. An 
attempt had been made to drug or poison him — prob- 
ably to poison — but he had feigned to be overcome, 
and had seized a momentary chance, when the 
Bulgarian's vigilance was relaxed, to escape through 
a poultry-yard and to tickle his throat en passant with 
a stray feather. Mais, bien sur, ce type-la n'avait pas 
manque de sang-froid! 

But this was not all. On the following evening 
Timothy had been stopped in the street by two men 
dressed as gendarmes. One had suddenly pinioned 
his arms from behind, while the other clapped a 
chloroform-soaked cloth over his mouth. As he 
swooned he had heard some guttural speech which was 
not Greek. He had recovered consciousness lying in 
a dark side-street, and his pocket-book containing the 
stolen documents was gone. 

Well, the mischief was done. The documents 
had been in our hands for some forty-eight hours, and 
we had lost them again without having decoded them. 
It was no good to blame the Vice-Consul for neglect- 
ing to take charge of them, as he had of the code 
itself, and to lock them up in his safe. He must feel 
that negligence as much as we. Anyhow he was 



78 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

trying to cope with the situation now. He was 
sheltering the young man at the Vice-Consulate against 
any further attempts on his life. It was reported 
indeed that the Bulgarian had left Candia for a village 
in the interior where he would probably be stopping 
at a well-known monastery; and the danger to the 
young man might therefore appear less instant. But 
the move of course might be only a blind, to put the 
young man off his guard and expose him to accom- 
plices, like the two sham gendarmes, left behind for 
the purpose. Had those gendarmes found on him 
the code itself as well as the stolen papers when they 
chloroformed him and robbed him in the street, they 
would probably not have spared his life. Possibly 
they had meant to carry him into some house and 
extort from him, when he recovered consciousness, 
information as to the whereabouts of the code and 
terrorise him into fetching it. The fact that he was 
lying in a dark side-street, when he came to, and not 
at the spot where he had been attacked, suggested that 
they had had some such purpose, but had been inter- 
rupted in their nefarious schemes and, droppirtg their 
insensible victim, had taken to flight. Another attempt 
on his life therefore might well be made. 

The loss was a nasty blow, and the precaution 
which would have safeguarded the documents was so 
obvious that I had never thought to suggest it. Well, 
we must work for another chance and make no mistake 
next time. 

Then the astonishing thing happened. A young 
friend of Timothy, who was making an excursion to 
the very monastery where the Bulgarian was believed 
to be, picked up a pocket-book lying by the wayside. 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 79 

He examined the contents and found some two or 
three hundred francs, some papers in a strange script 
which he could not read, and two medical prescriptions 
for Mr. Timothy Jannarakis. Knowing that Timothy 
was in some trouble and had left his lodgings, and 
that he was intimate with the French Vice-Consul who 
might know where to find him, he went to the Vice- 
Consulate on his return to Candia and handed the 
pocket-book to the Vice-Consul to give to Timothy. 
By a strange hazard which seemed little short of 
a miracle the missing documents had been retrieved, 
and this time were lodged in the Vice-Consul's 
safe. 

The recovery of the papers decided the French 
Vice-Consul in Canea to report the whole affair to 
his Legation in Athens. He had delayed doing so 1 
hitherto partly, I think, out of consideration for his 
subordinate at Candia whose negligence had con- 
tributed to the loss of them. He now represented to 
me that expert assistance in reading them was clearly 
wanted, and that the French Legation might be able to 
send some one over. I pressed him to hold over his 
report until I had been to Candia. I could not under- 
stand why, given the actual code and a document like 
the certificate of membership written in that code, with 
Timothy to inform us too of the sense of that 
document — for he must have taken the oath in plain 
language — given all this, I could not see why even an 
amateur with patience could not decode the rest. 
Perhaps too I wanted to take a part in the last act or 
two of this amazing melodrama, which should end to 
my thinking not with the reading of these papers but 
with the capture of the Bulgarian or — if the documents 



80 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

proved good stuff — who could say with what other 
denouement? 

I prevailed on the Vice-Consul for this brief delay, 
and on the S.N.O. for a destroyer to take me at once 
to Candia. It was evening when we arrived, a Sun- 
day evening of summer-time, and the good folks of 
Candia had emerged from their siestas and were sit- 
ting outside the more shaded cafes or strolling round 
the quays and gathering in knots to watch the 
destroyer come to anchor outside the old Venetian 
harbour, and her boat put in to the steps. I made my 
way to the French Vice-Consulate. The door in the 
wall of the front garden was locked and was opened 
cautiously to my knocking. My uniform gained me 
admittance to the garden, and I found the house 
apparently in a state of siege. Windows were 
shuttered, doors bolted, and two or three armed men 
lurked behind bushes on guard round the house. 
Mystery and menace were in the air. The man-servant 
who led me in spoke in hushed tones. The Vice-Consul 
received me in a darkened room. 

Then came the explanation. The life of the 
Vice-Consul too had been threatened. Hints had 
reached him before, and he had been followed in the 
streets. Now Timothy had learnt definitely of a plot 
against him. Timothy indeed had refused to remain 
in the house if his presence there was imperilling his 
good friend, the Vice-Consul, and had slipped away 
some hours ago. But the precious documents were 
still there, and therefore the risk might really be no 
less. Hence the barred windows, the armed guards, 
and a couple of loaded rifles in the room where 
we sat. 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 81 

I reminded him that for the time being at least we 
were reasonably safe. The destroyer was lying at 
anchor within some half-mile of us, and the flagstaff 
of the Vice-Consulate was visible from her. I knew 
nothing about naval signals, but with a sheet off his 
bed and a bottle of ink I would engage to turn out a 
plain-letter S.O.S. signal which hoisted on his flagstaff 
would be the cynosure of every eye. Meantime I 
should like to have the mysterious papers and the 
code. 

The code proved to be nothing but an alphabet of 
invented symbols, and the process of decoding there- 
fore would be mere transliteration. The writing was 
certainly rough and hasty; but I reckoned that with 
time and patience I could unravel it. I worked out a 
word or two of what appeared to be an address, and 
then, to familiarise my eye with the symbols, made a 
start on the better-written oath of membership. But 
Timothy, I thought, could expedite matters there, and 
in any case I wanted to see him. An old woman- 
servant, it appeared, could be trusted to fetch him 
and bring him along in the dusk which was now 
falling. 

Enter Timothy, a good-looking young fellow of a 
dark melancholic type but with singularly lustrous 
and brilliant dark eyes, and a toilette soignee to a 
surprising degree in the midst of all these dangers and 
anxieties. He told me the whole story dramatically 
as a Greek does, but with one or two outbursts of 
emotion almost exaggerated even in a Greek; on the 
staa:e he could have held an audience, though the 
soliloquy would have required nearly an act to itself. 
He answered questions readily as to his sources of 



82 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

information on various details; but the informants, I 
noticed, were chiefly lady-friends, starting with the 
typist at Athens who had launched him on this adven- 
ture, and ending with a servant-girl who had overheard 
some talk about an attempt on the French Vice-Consul. 
An amorous young man then, as indeed his elegant 
toilet might argue. 

"But why," I asked, "did you embark on this 
enterprise at all?" That question provoked the 
most violent of his outbursts. "Why? Why? 
Because I am destined for a great career; because 
my soul cries out in the night-watches for the hour 
when she shall cast her slough and prove her metal 
and take wing like a giant refreshed with wine. Now 
at last the trumpet-call has shattered her bonds and 
unsealed the flood-tide of opportunity whereon I may 
build a pinnacle of achievement whose fruit shall 
be blazoned with my name in letters of gold. Have 
I not proved my courage, my resource, my genius? 
Have I not braved the poisoner and the assassin and 
delivered into your hand the Red Brotherhood, who 
with fire and steel and nameless horrors are pledged 
to lay low the great captains of your armies? Body, 
soul, and spirit, I devote to the glorious cause of Eng- 
land and of France. Give me but a place of trust in 
your counsels, and I will be a destroying angel, a 
scorpion, a whirlwind, a panther — (in fact a quick- 
change artist in many guises) — to plumb the Red 
Brotherhood's devilish devices, to engulf their treach- 
erous feet in a morass, and to embed the fangs of 
righteous vengeance in their damned throats." 

Tut, tut! the young man was ambitious, it 
seemed, as well as amorous, and not hampered in his 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 83 

ambition by false modesty. I wondered what salary 
a destroying angel would want; I had not employed 
one before; so I tentatively approached the topic of 
the expenses he had already incurred. No, he was 
indifferent to money, — wanted neither reimbursement 
of what he had spent nor future remuneration. He 
had some small income which he would devote along 
with body, soul, and spirit aforesaid to the cause in 
which his genius would shine forth and be acclaimed. 
The indifference to money, I felt sure, was genuine. 
Now genuine indifference to money argues in a Greek 
an abnormal mentality. 

Amorous then, ambitious to the verge of megalo- 
mania, prone to emotional and histrionic outbursts: so 
I summed him up. But were these traits the symptoms 
of suppressed genius or of that mental malady to which 
genius is akin? 

I turned to the contents of the pocket-book, and 
asked him to help me in the decoding. We continued 
with the oath, or certificate of membership, on which 
I had already made a start. 

It was a strange document. At the top was 
depicted a snake, forming a scroll, with cabalistic signs 
for scales and marking; and beneath this was a heart 
with a red dagger pointed as if to pierce it. Crude 
work undoubtedly, but after all a small and select 
society of assassins may happen not to number an 
artist among its members. Then came the oath, 
which slowly we transliterated into Greek: "I swear 
by earth and sea, by heaven and hell, by the venomous 
serpent, and by the glowing poignard held to my 
heart, that I will in all things obey the Chief of the 
Red Brotherhood; that wheresoever he biddeth me 



84 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

go, I will go; that whomsoever he biddeth me slay, 

I will slay " Well, that was about as far as we 

got; the destroyer was waiting, and I could not stay 
all night; but I had little doubt that I could finish it 
at my leisure and could work out the worse-written 
papers as well. One thing struck me as noteworthy 
and, if the chief of the gang were really a Bulgarian, 
extremely significant, namely, that not only the copy 
of the oath taken by Timothy, but also the private 
papers stolen by him from the Bulgarian, were in 
Greek, and written in a code based upon the substi- 
tution of conventional symbols for the letters of the 
Greek alphabet. On the other hand, the code itself 
appeared to me almost too childish an invention to 
be the secret instrument of communication between 
members of a serious society. 

My conclusion was that either we were up against 
a desperate gang of ruffians of little education but of 
fanatical purpose, the members being drawn mainly 
from the mixed Balkan population of Macedonia or 
Thrace and using Greek as their lingua franca; or 
else Timothy was suffering from advanced hysteria 
of the megalomaniac order. I wished I had a doctor 
with me to give a professional opinion on the looks 
and manner of Timothy. I had some notion that a 
victim of hysteria would go to considerable lengths 
in inventing wild stories of adventure, persecution, 
and sensational situations in general; but this story 
would have needed not only hysterical imagination 
but long and patient contrivance of the corroborating 
circumstances. The inquiries we had received from 
Athens for example about the Bulgarian's original 
landing, and the retrieving of the lost pocket-book 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 85 

by a friend who had delivered it into the Vice-Consul's 
own hands, — how account for these? 

Well, there was just one chance of deciding be- 
tween these alternatives. The pocket-book had con- 
tained two medical prescriptions. I would take them 
back with me along with the*'' other papers and the 
code, and ask our doctor on board to examine them 
without giving him any hint of the problem. If he 
should pronounce the prescribed remedies to be 
adapted to any nervous or mental disorders, the scale 
would be turned. 

Accordingly I pointed out to Timothy that, as he 
would readily appreciate in a case of such importance, 
I must take with me for careful study every piece de 
conviction connected with the affair, pocket-book, 
prescriptions, and all. Who could say but that a 
microscopic examination of them might reveal a 
thumb-mark or two by which some of the conspirators 
would be identified and brought to justice? He was 
all enthusiasm over this great thought, and, as the 
destroyer had already been kept waiting a long time, 
I made my adieux to him and the Vice-Consul, and 
left Timothy at any rate happy. The Vice-Consul 
remained anxious, and would have liked to lend me 
one or two of his armed guard to escort me and the 
precious papers I was carrying down to the harbour. 
But somehow I felt more like a spectator of a well- 
staged melodrama than an actor in a tragedy of real 
life. So I walked down alone, — untracked and un- 
molested. 

It was well on in the middle watch before I was 
back at Suda, and I slept upon my meditations. Next 
morning I asked the doctor to examine the prescrip- 



86 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

tions — they were in French, written by a physician 
in Athens some months previously; the doctor knew 
the symbols and I made out the words; and then I 
settled down to decoding the remaining papers. But 
I had not got far when the doctor looked in. Little 
doubt, he said, could exist about either prescription 
alone, and none about the two in conjunction. The 
patient had been suffering from extreme hysteria 
or actual paranoia, which I understand to be a mental 
state slightly beyond the rather indefinable borders 
of sanity. I gave him then my impressions of the 
patient, — amorous, ambitious to the point of megalo- 
mania, prone to emotional and histrionic outbursts. 
I as a layman had diagnosed advanced hysteria; would 
these symptoms justify the diagnosis? Yes, he said; 
and when I outlined the whole story, he saw nothing 
incompatible with hysterical extravagances in that 
patient contrivance of premeditated deceptions which 
had puzzled me. 

So the Red Brotherhood then was only a phantom 
of Timothy's imagination; and here my story should 
end. But in fact it does not. I might know, and 
might half convince the French Vice-Consul at Canea 
(though not his colleague at Candia), that the author 
and sole actor of this exciting drama was Timothy; 
but Timothy himself continued to play his part with 
unabated zest. 

Only a week or two had elapsed when I received 
a letter in a feminine handwriting from Candia. It 
was at once a glowing eulogy of Timothy's abilities, 
enterprise, and courage, and a solemn warning as to 
the peril in which his life stood. A third attempt had 
been made upon him, this time by the assassin's 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 87 

dagger, and he had escaped as by a miracle with 
a mere scratch. A gang of murderers were bent on 
his destruction in order to seal his lips for ever. 
Timothy had spoken to her, the writer, of Lord 
Kitchener's death (this had just occurred) some weeks 
beforehand, and had known by what means this gang 
would compass it. And so, with an apology for the 
indifferent French of her missive, she commended 
Timothy to my care. At a later date I made some 
inquiries about this young lady, and, Timothy by that 
time having transferred his affections elsewhere, she 
confessed that she had written the letter at Timothy's 
own dictation. 

Finally re-enter Timothy, aboard the S.N.O.'s 
ship at Suda. Having heard nothing from me, he 
had come to see me. After three attempts on his 
life, he was no longer prepared to face the dangers 
of Candia unless the post of peril were also the post 
of duty and high service. He had therefore slipped 
on board a coasting-steamer bound for Canea, meaning 
to come and settle his future with me. But even so 
he had been followed. On the steamer he had not 
been sure about it, but the night which he had passed 
at the Hotel de France in Canea had convinced him 
that it was so. The hotel was full, but he had been 
lucky in securing the last available room to himself. 
(I may explain that in Greek hotels, other than the 
more up-to-date hotels of Athens and a few fashionable 
watering-places, it is quite customary to take a bed 
only and not the whole bedroom, which may be 
shared by any other traveller.) About midnight a 
stranger had roused the night porter, and had asked 
for a bed. The porter had replied that the hotel 



88 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

was full. Was there not, persisted the stranger, any 
room taken by one man only who would perhaps 
allow him at least to have a blanket on the floor if 
there was no second bed there? And some gratuity, 
it was to be supposed, changed hands. Anyhow the 
porter had brought the stranger up to Timothy's 
room, and had ventured to knock and waken him. 
He had opened the door cautiously, and had rec- 
ognised in the stranger the very person about whom 
he had felt uneasy on the steamer. One glance had 
sufficed, and he had re-locked the door, and returned 
a curt refusal to the stranger's request. 

Now Timothy was beginning to bore me and as 
long as he was in Crete would continue to do so. I 
therefore took his new story seriously and told him 
that his dangers in Crete appeared disproportionate 
to any services which he, a marked man, could now 
render, and suggested that he would have a larger as 
well as a more secure field for his activities in Athens. 
If he would proceed there by the steamer which had 
brought him from Candia to Canea and was sailing 
again for Piraeus that night, this would fit in with a 
scheme which occurred to me for laying hands on the 
mysterious stranger who was tracking him. Timothy 
must take two first-class tickets for Piraeus, slip 
aboard the steamer in good time, and lock himself 
into his cabin where he would have a right to the two 
berths. He should watch through his porthole if 
possible for the coming of the stranger, but should 
on no account leave his cabin till the steamer called 
at Suda early in the morning for examination before 
proceeding to Piraeus. I should come on board as 
boarding-officer with the usual guard of marines. 



THE RED BROTHERHOOD 89 

He would only have to point out the stranger, and an 
arrest could be made. 

Everything worked out according to programme, 
save only that there was no stranger for him to point 
out to me next morning. I had half expected that I 
was committed to arresting some perfectly harmless 
individual on whom Timothy would have fixed to fill 
the role. But either he had been sea-sick all night 
and was not equal to that effort, or else he feared that 
the person arrested would not correspond sufficiently 
with the stranger whom the night-porter at the Canea 
hotel could describe to me. For the story of that 
stranger was not a mere figment of Timothy's brain; 
when I next lunched at the hotel in question, I learned 
on inquiry that the incident had happened exactly as 
Timothy said. Someone then had been persuaded or 
hired by him to play the part, in order that complete 
corroboration of his story might be forthcoming. The 
young man had a method in his madness. 

He was a little upset at the failure of half my 
scheme, as he put it. If the capture of the stranger 
had coincided with his own departure for Athens, he 
would have gone happily; but, since the stranger had 
evidently lost track of him and not taken passage with 
him, he was more than half inclined to land at Suda 
forthwith and see the matter through. But there I 
was adamant. He should be exposed to no further 
perils in Crete. His career lay before him in Athens. 

Was not that the end? Not quite. I saw him no 
more; but at a satisfactory distance I heard of his 
career. Several months later the British Intelligence 
Service at Athens sent me an urgent signal: "Infor- 
mation received from trustworthy source concerning 



90 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

Bulgarian agent formerly at Candia. Apparently 
escaped to Salonica district where he recently died. 
Important documents believed to have been left with 
member of same gang in Candia" — or words to that 
effect. I replied, "Bulgarian agent and documents 
are hallucinations of your presumed informant, 
Timothy Jannarakis, who is not reckoned trustworthy 
here. See my Intelligence Circular No. so-and-so," 
in which I had summarised the results of my previous 
investigation. The S.N.O. might not have approved 
my signal if I had added, "Your leg is being pulled, 
and your own records should show it" ; but they 
took my meaning and dropped Timothy like a hot 
brick. * 

But the hot brick fell on its paws and was soon in 
the swim again, eager as ever to win its spurs, as 
Timothy himself in his more exuberant moods might 
have said; and when I last heard of him he had 
found his true career, in the grand work of directing 
and forming public opinion, as assistant-editor of an 
Athenian newspaper which was neither shy of sensa- 
tionalism and hyperbole nor prudish in its devotion 
to truth. 

He may yet be a Deputy and a Minister. 



CHAPTER IV 

FRITZ & CO. 

PART L— THE RAID 

Fritz & Co. was a company floated with the object 
of securing a monopoly of the seas and thereafter the 
development of the choicest colonies beyond them. 
It could command almost unlimited capital, though it 
must be confessed that larger and more numerous 
items thereof than the shareholders knew were con- 
tinually being sunk for good and all in sundry marine 
ventures, and had to be written off as irrecoverable. 
It enjoyed moreover the backing of most august 
personages: for the All-Highest, the Prince of this 
world, not content with bespeaking for the company 
the good offices of the Most High, his celestial 
confrere, had deigned to bestow on it his own gracious 
favour and exalted patronage. There was only one 
competing concern which was in any way a serious 
obstacle. This had certainly done well in the past; 
but it was thought, with some reason perhaps, to be 
now in the hands of an old-fashioned, drowsy, and 
dilatory board of directors, while its working personnel 
was reputed, though with less reason, to be idle and 
effete. A really up-to-date company like Fritz & Co., 
scientific in its organisation and equipment, scientific 
too in the education of a personnel capable of realising 
the modern principle that a business hampered by 

91 



92 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

mediaeval conceptions of honour or the scruples of a 
Christian conscience cannot be a commercial success 
(though of course the foreign edition of the company's 
prospectus emphasised its humanitarian far more than 
its commercial aims) — such an up-to-date company 
ought to make short work of any antiquated 
competitor. 

But, notwithstanding the importance and vast pros- 
pects of the company, its working managers, its 
travellers, and its foreign representatives were singu- 
larly modest men indisposed to any personal reclame. 
"Fritz" itself was a generic name to which every 
commander of a German submarine was expected to 
answer, just as a French sportsman's dog should 
answer to the name of "Fox," or an English police- 
man to that of "Robert"; and the little word "Co." 
covered a multitude of agents all equally anxious to 
conceal their identity. In fact a strong preference had 
been felt in all quarters for forming the company on 
the lines of a societe anonym e or Limited Liability 
Company. Anonymity would be the surest safeguard 
against any unpleasant personal liability on the part of 
individual members and agents, if ever the company 
should suffer compulsory liquidation and its methods 
and accounts be scrutinised by possibly hostile auditors. 

It was the Athens branch of this company with 
which I first came in contact. A certain person had 
approached the French Secret Service in Athens — 
(there is no need for reticence in this matter, for the 
whole correspondence which formed the kernel of the 
affair was subsequently published in the Athens news- 
papers and copied, I believe, into the French and 
English, and formed moreover the subject of some 



FRITZ & CO. 93 

questions in the House of Commons) — and had made 
an offer to bring them the press-copy-book from the 
private office of the leading Greek representative of 
Fritz & Co. The book was brought more than once 
as opportunity offered, its pages were photographed, 
and it was privily restored to its place, with the 
result that the so-called "Callimassiotis correspond- 
ence" was in French hands and no suspicion of the deal 
had been aroused. The French communicated their 
discovery to the British Intelligence Service, more, I 
think, through irrepressible elation over their coup 
than in the desire for sensible and systematic co-opera- 
tion in following up the clues which the correspondence 
gave. Certainly in the result there was no co-opera- 
tion, but rather a rivalry in independent exploitation of 
the secret, which led to mutual confusion. 

Callimassiotis was a well-known Greek deputy, 
and it appeared from the correspondence that, in 
concert with Baron Schenk, he was directing an 
organisation for the supply of petrol, and of other 
commodities including useful information concerning 
the movements of British and Allied shipping, to 
German submarines. There were a large number of 
letters in all, some in French, others in Greek, all in 
the same handwriting and mostly signed with a some- 
what illegible and curtailed "Callimassiotis" so far as 
could be made out. They were addressed to a variety 
of persons in many places, but those which interested 
me most directly were some half-dozen or more 
addressed to a certain Velisarios in Canea, and to other 
names in Retimo and elsewhere, and all dealing with 
what appeared to be the revictualling of submarines 
with petrol and such-like in Cretan waters. There 



94 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

were references to certain agents denoted by a common 
Christian name or by initials only; to the number of 
cases of an unspecified commodity shipped by a 
particular coasting-vessel; to hitches and delays which 
had occurred and must not recur. They were most 
intriguing letters. 

Copies of them had reached the British, the French, 
and also indirectly the Italian Consul, just before our 
arrival at Suda Bay; and I learnt later that the Consuls 
had all been working independently, supplemented by 
a number of independent agents from Athens, in the 
usual game of cross-purposes and queering each other's 
pitch. At first I knew only of the British Consul's 
activities and was working with him. 

I went on more than one wild-goose chase. There 
was a certain Ianni for example who figured in the 
correspondence as an agent travelling between Piraeus 
and Crete. Now Iannis, that is Johns, are as the sand 
upon the seashore, innumerable; but a Canea in- 
formant having watched the movements of a certain 
Ianni, who was not a native of the place and was 
sailing for Piraeus next day, enveloped him in such 
a cloud of suspicion that it was decided to board his 
ship at sea, — this was before all steamships had to call 
at Suda for examination, — and to seize him and his 
baggage. The informant was to take passage by the 
same ship, and quietly point him out to me when I 
boarded her; but as the informant himself was wanted 
back in Canea at once, it was necessary that I should 
arrest him too on some pretext. I had no time to see 
him privately that evening, and knew him by sight for 
the first time when he was instructed to walk past me 
where I sat with the Consul at a cafe. The Consul 



FRITZ & CO. 95 

however told him to interpose insultingly and with 
a show of violence next day, when I arrested Ianni, 
and to give me thus an excuse for arresting him as 
well. 

Next morning I left Suda in a sloop at a suitable 
hour, and we overhauled the steamer a few miles out 
from Canea and ordered her to heave to. I boarded 
her to conduct a formal search. The informant had 
taken his place near Ianni and easily showed me by 
a glance which was the man I wanted. I continued 
the ordinary procedure, — examination of ship's papers, 
manifests of cargo, and passengers' passports, — and 
my informant became nervous. He apparently thought 
that, because I did not arrest Ianni at once, I must 
have failed to see his signal. He began coughing, 
winking, and furtively pointing, and I was dreading 
even a stage-whisper before long. However Ianni's 
turn came to show his passport, and I pronounced it 
not in order, asked a number of questions, professed 
dissatisfaction with his answers, and put him under 
arrest. And now when I wanted the informant to 
pick up his cue and act a dramatic part, he stood 
mum. I had already accepted his passport as correct, 
so could not arrest him too on the same pretext. 
Meantime I went on with the final formalities, signing 
the log, and entering there the fact of Ianni's removal. 
Still no move on the informant's part. Well, I could 
not help it; I had promised the Consul to bring him 
back, but it looked as if he must complete his trip to 
Piraeus. I was ready to leave with my one prisoner 
under his escort of marines. The informant was 
standing apart from the rest of the passengers at the 
head of the companion-way from the upper to the 



96 TALES OF yEGEAN INTRIGUE 

main deck. As I led the way down, I just whispered 
"Follow." He could obey an order at any rate and 
followed me close, in front of the marines. As I 
turned into a narrow covered gangway, I swung round 
as if to see that the marines and their prisoner were 
following, and abused the informant loudly for stum- 
bling against me, as indeed he had, and interfering with 
an officer in the execution of his duty. What the devil 
did he mean by butting in between me and the escort? 
Was he in league with the prisoner and trying to re- 
lieve him of some incriminating papers before he was 
taken to the sloop and searched? The ass stood and 
gaped; and meanwhile the other passengers from the 
upper deck, hearing the noise of an altercation, flocked 
round us. I put the man under arrest and told the 
marines to get him down into the boat at once, while I 
returned to the upper deck followed by the passengers. 
I sent for the captain again, said I must enter another 
arrest in the log, and explained the incident loudly 
enough for the passengers to hear. Did any of them 
know the man, I asked, and whether by any chance he 
was mad? That is a pleasantry which always takes 
with a Greek mob. They flocked to the side to have 
a look at him. He was grinning broadly, and the 
grin seemed to justify my surmise. 

Aboard the sloop, I asked him why he had played 
the fool and not the game. He was apologetic and 
contrite; but he had not been able to bring himself to 
insult a British officer; he was too bashful. I made 
a note not to employ bashful agents, though indeed it 
is not a common Greek failing. The only thing not 
bashful about him had been his denunciation of Ianni; 
and Ianni was entirely innocent, — a courier by pro- 



FRITZ & CO. 97 

fession and a staunch friend of England by sympathy, 
who subsequently without remuneration gave me 
several items of interesting information concerning 
the officers and the passengers of ships in which he 
travelled. 

Such were the side-shows arising out of vague 
hints in the Callimassiotis correspondence; but after 
two or three months the British Consul received solid 
information which promised surer developments. 
Velisarios of Canea had been discovered. It was, as 
we had presumed, a nom de guerre. A young agent 
named Sakir Tsourounakis, a Mohammedan and 
valuable on that account since the bulk of the Moham- 
medans were naturally in sympathy with Turkey, had 
shown great industry and initiative in trying to track 
out Velisarios and had now identified him. He was 
one of the brothers Zeki and Ali Sourourzade, 
Mohammedans like our informant, in business as 
general merchants with offices on the quay at Canea. 
The proof of identity lay in the fact that two letters, 
one registered and the other express, addressed to 
Velisarios Sourouris and bearing the Athens postmark, 
had recently reached the Canea post-office. Some 
delay had occurred in the delivery of them, because 
no such real name was known in the place and no 
such alias, in the way of trading-name or nom de 
-plume, was registered in the post-office books. Sakir 
however, the young agent, had learned from a friend 
formerly a clerk in the post-office, that letters similarly 
addressed had arrived more than once and had been 
called for by one of the brothers Sourourzade. 
Sourouris, I may add, was a quite possible abbrevia- 
tion of the name Sourourzade, the termination -zade, 



98 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

like -oglou and -akis, being in Cretan usage more or 
less detachable. 

The chance of acquiring these two letters had been 
too good to be missed; Sakir had forged for himself 
an authority from Velisarios Sourouris, dated as from 
a distant village, to receive the letters on Velisarios' 
behalf; and thus they passed into our hands. 

One of these was a mere note hastily written with 
reference to some piece of business which might have 
been wholly innocent and legitimate; the other was a 
typewritten letter, addressed to Ali inside and not, 
as on the envelope, to Velisarios, and referring to the 
shipment of a number of cases of an unspecified com- 
modity, and the need of making adequate arrange- 
ments for receiving the same. It appeared in short to 
belong to the series of letters known to us as the 
Callimassiotis correspondence. The signature to both 
our letters was illegible and might represent that name 
as well as any other. 

It was quite obvious that action must be taken and 
that immediately. Should the brothers Sourourzade 
call for their letters and find that someone else had 
forestalled them, they would inevitably destroy any 
other evidence in their office and possibly abscond as 
well. On the other hand our orders were to arrest no 
one ashore, and a raid upon the premises of two promi- 
nent merchants in the chief town would be a particu- 
larly open breach of orders. Accordingly I suggested 
to the S.N.O. that I should go over to Athens, taking 
with me the two letters, and impress upon our Lega- 
tion the importance of waiving for the nonce the 
political veto on raids. 

[ had certain other business too with the British 



FRITZ & CO. 99 

Minister. Greek refugees from Thrace and Asia 
Minor had recently been exported in quantity from 
Piraeus and dumped at Suda, to await there the 
arrival of French transports by which they would 
proceed to Marseilles to be utilised in the work of 
harvest and vintage in Southern France. There were 
fifteen hundred of them there when I left, — men, 
women, and children, — and they were destitute of 
lodging and short of both food and clothing. Camp- 
ing out as they were in completely insanitary con- 
ditions, they were quite likely to start some serious 
epidemic at our naval base; and, inasmuch as they 
could have no proper papers of identity, any number 
of enemy agents too might be among them. I wanted 
our Minister to urge upon the French Legation, as 
I did personally on the French Naval Attache, the 
necessity of providing a transport for the removal of 
the refugees already assembled at Suda, and the grave 
objections which would be taken by us, amounting 
perhaps to a veto on disembarkation, if any more 
batches were sent. I obtained satisfactory assurances 
on both points. 

Next I opened fire on a subject which I have 
mentioned previously, the use of the Eastern Tele- 
graph Company's cables by the German and Austrian 
Consuls in Canea and elsewhere, or by any other 
enemy agents. I strongly resented this employment 
of British wires by Fritz & Co. and I roundly accused 
the Foreign Office of a negligence little short of 
treasonable in permitting the continuance of this 
practice to the peril of our shipping. As I have said, 
I believe that my criticisms were reported, perhaps in 
less trenchant terms, to the Home Government, and 



100 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

had some effect upon the terms of a note delivered to 
Greece a month later; but for the moment the 
Minister could promise nothing. 

Perhaps however he saw that I knew something 
about the situation in Crete and could judge of our 
needs. For when I laid before him the evidence 
against the brothers Sourourzade, over which the 
Intelligence Officer attached to the Legation was quite 
exultant, I found him more ready to meet me than I 
had anticipated. I was advocating no half-measures. 
I told him of many leading persons of Canea and the 
other towns, who were undoubtedly in German pay; 
that the officials in every branch of administration 
were appointed for their Germanophile sentiments; 
and that I had seen a confidential circular of the 
Greek Ministry of the Interior ordering the 
gendarmerie to obstruct us in any covert way. 
Neither conciliation nor bribery could alter the situa- 
tion now. Fear was our only weapon, and frankly I 
wanted not only a raid upon the premises of the 
Sourourzade but a raid so sensational as to disturb 
the equanimity of Canea for some time to come. 

My case was undoubtedly strong, and the Minister 
accepted my project without reserve, except that it 
was understood between us that any forecast I might 
have made of action which the Senior Naval Officer 
at Suda might be contemplating was in the nature of 
a private expression of opinion rather than an official 
or even semi-official communication. That was all 
right. It meant that the Minister would back us, but 
was free to express official surprise, concern, or other 
suitable emotion, when the time came. I might be 
doing the same for that matter. 



FRITZ & CO. 101 

I returned to Suda, and was clearing up some 
arrears of work which had accumulated during my 
absence, in order to be free to concentrate on the 
projected raid, when I was called on deck. There 
was one of the refugees of whom I had spoken at 
Athens, swaying on his feet even though he held to a 
stanchion, and scarcely able to articulate. He was far 
gone in starvation; and when he had had something 
to revive him, he told me that he, his wife, and his 
children had been three days without a morsel of 
food, and that numbers of the other refugees were in 
the same plight. To add to their misery, there had 
been a heavy thunderstorm on one of the nights that 
I was away in Athens, and lying out in the open with 
no shelter they had all been drenched, and many were 
now down with fever. 

I went ashore at once to investigate, and found 
the situation far worse than I had looked for. The 
open spaces in and about Suda village were littered 
with the debris of destitute humanity. Squalid and 
ragged objects lay in the dust, amid the heat of an 
August sun and a stench indescribable, too exhausted 
to beat off the flies which clustered even in the corners 
of their eyes. Some few families with more enter- 
prise had built a laager of the boxes and bundles of 
household goods they carried with them, and had 
stretched a ragged awning of worn and dirty blankets 
overhead. Others, the thickest crowd of all, had 
sought the shelter of a belt of trees, resigned to endure 
the mosquitoes of the night, if only they might escape 
the glare of the day. And all the time an unceasing 
conflux of tired feet sought the one village-pump, and 
carried back tepid water in old tins to thirsting children. 



102 TALES OF yEGEAN INTRIGUE 

The numbers of the refugees had obviously been 
multiplied while I was away, and I made inquiries. I 
had been absent about a week, and during that time 
three or four crowded boats had come in. The 
examination of passengers had of necessity been some- 
what formal and cursory in my absence, and it had 
not been realised that the mass of them were not 
ordinary travellers, but homeless and penniless refu- 
gees, — more labour recruited for South France. At 
the very time when I was receiving French assurances 
in Athens that no more of these emigrants should be 
sent via Suda, shiploads of them were being sent 
daily from Piraeus. Our numbers had now risen 
from about fifteen hundred to five thousand; and the 
feeding of this five thousand would want little short of 
another miracle, towards which no one had yet con- 
tributed either a loaf or a fish. The French Vice- 
Consul had not even been apprised of their coming, and 
was now awaiting either instructions to keep them alive 
or a transport to remove their corpses. The Prefect 
of Canea and other Greek officials were entirely in- 
different to the starvation of their compatriots who had 
engaged for French service, and hoped no doubt to 
localise any outbreak of typhus or other epidemic with- 
in the vicinity of the British naval base. For the mo- 
ment I loved the French little better than the Greeks. 

It would be a race against time to save these people, 
and we buckled to. It was reckoned that the present 
number of completely destitute families, who had 
already bartered for bread their last earthly belongings 
except the inadequate rags they wore, numbered about 
four hundred, — say two thousand mouths in all. For 
that number we must provide bread or ship's biscuit 



FRITZ & CO. 103 

at once, together with milk for the children and for 
some of the mothers, and quinine or other medicines 
for the sick. The doctor and I were busy late into 
the night, accompanied by a party of marines laden 
with sacks of condensed milk and medical stores, 
searching out the worst cases and having a few of 
them removed to the back room of a cafe which served 
as an improvised ward. Other officers were busy 
superintending the distribution of bread and biscuit 
elsewhere. 

These were the temporary expedients. Mean- 
while all the bakers' shops of Suda were commandeered 
for all-night work. Flour was issued to them, and 
arrangements made for checking the weight of bread 
they would return to us in the morning. My chief 
agent's shop in the village was placed by him at our 
disposal as the centre for distribution, and lists were 
prepared, with tickets to correspond, on which the 
name and numbers of each family drawing a bread- 
ration, or entitled to a milk-allowance as well, could be 
entered by a small staff as the queue passed along. 
Parties of bluejackets also were told off to dig latrines 
at suitable points, and then to police the area and 
ensure the use of them. 

One more thing only was wanted, — shelter for the 
women and children; and the big barracks in the 
arsenal-enclosure were standing empty. The enclosure 
itself had been grudgingly lent to us by the Greek 
military authorities in Canea for the purposes of 
recreation ashore; but it was agreed that we should 
not occupy any of the buildings. We now sent them a 
note explaining the situation, and asking for the loan 
of the barracks to house the women and children. 



104 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

They refused. I had underrated even their inhu- 
manity, for I had not expected obstruction carried to 
such lengths. However, sharp measures were taken. 
They were given by telephone an ultimatum expiring 
in two hours. If by that time we had not received their 
consent, a landing-party would take forcible possession. 
They knew that they could hardly rush their own 
troops down from Canea in so short a period, and 
perhaps they remembered that on a previous occasion, 
when they had objected to a sick British officer being 
nursed ashore and had notified their gallant intention 
of ejecting him from his bed by force of arms, they 
had been warned that the ship's guns covered all the 
approaches to Suda. Anyhow their formal consent 
was given with ten minutes in hand. So that night, 
the second after the state of things was discovered, we 
had the women and children lodged under shelter. 

The situation was saved, and we had no deaths, nor 
any epidemic. The insanitary state of the whole 
camping-ground was, I imagine, neutralised by the 
sheer dry heat of those days. The number of families 
to be fed naturally increased day by day as other 
refugees exhausted their small supplies, and the inroads 
upon the ship's stores were heavy; but the organisa- 
tion once set up was easily extended. Before the 
transports finally arrived to remove our visitors, we 
were feeding nearly four thousand. 

In general the refugees behaved in the most 
orderly way, and submitted themselves to the authority 
of any one in uniform without question. There was 
only one threatened disturbance. About the fourth or 
fifth afternoon of our regime I was passing through 
the village when I saw an excited crowd outside my 



FRITZ & CO. 105 

agent's shop. Alexander Giangi, — that was his name, 
— no Greek himself, but of mixed French and Arab 
blood, I believe, — had been devoting himself night 
and day to the refugees, and on this particular after- 
noon had not yet had his dejeuner, but had carried on 
since early morning distributing bread so that others 
who were hungry might eat first; and now with the 
aid of one or two women in the shop he was trying to 
bar the entry of an excited mob who were accusing 
him of holding back their bread and selling it for his 
own profit. I pushed my way to the steps in front of 
the shop-door, and the sight of my uniform made 
them pause for a moment. They were mostly the 
young or unmarried men, who, having no dependents, 
had husbanded their resources for their own use, and 
were not yet rationed by us nor starving either; there 
was plenty of life in them if they could go looting. I 
knew the symptoms of starvation by now. 

Then from the steps of the shop I delivered my 
first public speech in Greek. I confess that I was 
very angry, and I intended them to know it. I told 
them that some hundreds or thousands of them owed 
their lives to the British and to the British only. 
The French had hired them, had promised to convey 
them to Marseilles, and had dumped them to die at 
Suda pending further arrangements. Their own 
beloved compatriots at Canea had not moved one 
finger to save them from starvation, and had even 
refused the use of the barracks for the women and 
children, until we, the British, threatened to occupy 
them by force. As for Alexander whom they were 
accusing of stealing their bread, he was the one man 
not British who had worked for them, and he had 



106 TALES OF iEGEAN INTRIGUE 

slaved even while they slept that they might not go 
hungry ; even at this hour he was still fasting himself. 
One thing I could tell them: Alexander was not a 
Greek and did not steal. Now they could go, and if 
there were any further trouble of this sort, not one 
man more should be added to the list of the rationed; 
they could die, for all I cared, like the dogs they were. 

Distinctly indiscreet, but obviously sincere. At 
any rate the speech had its desired effect, and the mob 
dispersed. It was an interesting and encouraging 
experience, as I was expecting to deal with another 
angry crowd in a day or two. 

The inevitable postponement of the raid upon the 
brothers Sourourzade had been bothering me not a 
little. While we were feeding the hungry, those 
worthy merchants might be thirsty for news and 
calling for expected letters. And then an event 
occurred which precipitated matters. The young 
agent, Sakir, had been busy again and had shown, I 
thought, almost too much initiative. He had employed 
one of the most adept thieves in Canea to effect an 
entrance into the Sourourzade's office and bring away 
a whole bundle of papers. These papers had been 
brought by the thief himself direct to the British 
Consul, who, on examining them, had found one more 
letter of the compromising series, pinned to a note of 
some financial dealings in Athens. The letter was 
typewritten on paper bearing the business-heading of 
some ironmongery-concern in Piraeus. Like one of 
the previous two, it referred to the shipment of certain 
cases of goods, but went on to thank the unnamed 
person to whom it was written for calling attention to 
the prospective sailing of a French transport from 



FRITZ & CO. 107 

Suda. This, it continued, had not been overlooked, 
but it was not desired to provoke at present any 
complications with the Greek Government. So 
the brothers Sourourzade, it appeared, had suggested 
the torpedoing of a transport which was to be sent by 
the French to remove our Greek refugees from Suda. 
Well, with the chances of the burglary being discovered 
added to the previous risks, it was time to press on. 

The next day, being market-day in Canea, seemed 
suitable if we wanted a sensation, and arrangements 
were made accordingly. My plan was that in the 
morning a trawler with a small motor-launch in tow 
should proceed round to Canea, timing herself to 
arrive off the entrance of the harbour about eleven in 
the forenoon. An officer with a couple of men, other 
than those forming the motor-launch's crew, should 
come up the harbour and land on the quay right 
opposite the Sourourzade's office, — the two men carry- 
ing baskets as if they were coming f6r provisions 
from the market. Meanwhile I with four selected 
petty officers should have reached Canea by land, — the 
petty officers making their way there independently of 
me, and being dressed as trawler-hands out for a day's 
leave. They would seat themselves in pairs outside 
two cafes on either side of the premises to be raided. 
My own post of observation would be the window of 
an hotel overlooking the harbour. When the motor- 
launch was just arriving at the quay, I should come 
out of the hotel and go straight to the office, and the 
two men from the launch and the two pairs of petty 
officers at the cafes on either side would close in 
behind me. One of the two prisoners was a large 
and fat man weighing some fifteen stone at a guess, 



108 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

and it would take four men probably to carry him 
across the quay and deposit him in the launch; the 
other was of slighter build and somewhat feeble, so 
that the remaining two could tackle him. 

That evening, the day before the raid, I saw a 
certain officer of police in Canea who could be trusted. 
I told him what grave evidence we had against the 
brothers Sourourzade and the action we proposed 
taking, and suggested that the disposition of the police 
on the following day should be such that at eleven in 
the forenoon none of them should be on duty on the 
quay, but that for an hour thereafter men whom he 
could trust in case of trouble should be on the route 
(particularly at certain corners of it) by which I and 
my party would be leaving the town. He agreed, 
subject to being satisfied that the evidence was really 
conclusive, and I promised to bring with me copies of 
the incriminating letters next morning and to show 
them to him at the hotel at ten o'clock, when he 
could also acquaint me with the dispositions he had 
made. 

The police officer was waiting for me next morn- 
ing in the salon on the first floor of the hotel, from 
which I purposed also to watch for the motor-launch. 
I was a little late. On landing at Suda that morning 
I had been waylaid by a deputation of the refugees. 
They wished to express to me their heartfelt thanks 
for all that the British had done and were doing for 
them, and they begged my acceptance of a bouquet. 
It was a fine large bouquet of assorted flowers closely 
packed, and seeing that we were now in August when 
flowers in general are parched up and gone, they must 
have organised a systematic pilfering from the better- 



FRITZ & CO. 109 

kept gardens of the villagers in order to amass this 
token of their gratitude to me. I replied however, 
as the reporters always say, in a few well-chosen words, 
without expressing undue admiration of their resource 
in procuring the flowers, and then drove on with my 
bouquet to Canea. 

But I had hardly shaken hands with the police 
officer, when who should follow me in but the Prefect. 
This was a new Prefect of whom I knew little. The 
one with whom I had had the pleasure of correspond- 
ing over the Gatchieff affair had been dismissed 
shortly afterwards, possibly for his mismanagement of 
that delicate matter. I had paid a formal call on his 
successor, but had little information about him. Now 
he had dropped in for a cup of coffee and invited us 
to join him. There was nothing for it but to accept. 
He had probably seen me entering just ahead of him, 
and to make excuses and go out again at once would 
rouse suspicion. So we sat sipping our coffee and 
making polite conversation while the minutes slipped 
by. Half-past ten now, and no sign of the Prefect 
budging. Twenty to eleven, and the motor-launch 
due at eleven. I rose, made my adieux, and went 
and hid in a bedroom round the corner of the passage 
outside, from which I could watch through a crack of 
the door for the Prefect's departure, and through the 
window for the advent of the launch. At the worst 
I could but carry on without knowing the police 
arrangements which had been made. 

But in another five minutes the Prefect made a 
move, and the quarter of an hour in hand sufficed for 
showing the copies of the letters to the officer, and 
learning his dispositions of the police. Then he 



110 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

hurried off to make a final survey, and to be absent 
from the scene of operations himself. 

There were only a few minutes of waiting, and I 
was glad of it because they are the most trying. Then 
the launch appeared, and the hour for action had 
come. It all worked out to plan. The petty officers 
had entered with such zest into the idea that I should 
hardly have recognised them in the extremely neglige 
toilet which they had deemed appropriate to a trawler- 
hand out for a day's leave. But they entered with 
equal zest into the business of kidnapping. The fat 
man was sitting conveniently outside his office, and 
struggled in fact less than the little one; but the 
latter had been removed from the office without his 
fez, and, when I handed him that, he was quieter. In 
thirty seconds or so the launch was under way again, 
and, unless the Greek military guard at the fort pro- 
tecting the harbour-entrance should have the spirit to 
open fire and risk the trawler replying with her gun, 
our prisoners would soon be aboard. 

As a matter of fact there was no trouble there, but 
a certain liveliness was developing on the quay. I 
had been informed that the Sourourzade brothers had 
only their office on the quay, and lived elsewhere. 
But this was wrong. The upper storeys of the house 
formed the harem, and there had been unseen 
spectators behind those latticed windows all the time. 
Unseen, but not now unheard; for they lifted up their 
voices in true Oriental style and wept, with the result 
that the sensation created and the crowd attracted 
surpassed my hopes. We were in a tight corner. 
For purposes of offence the site had been excellent, 
but there was no means by which the five of us could 



FRITZ & CO. Ill 

consolidate a defensive position. Even if no pistols 
came into play, we might easily be hustled over the 
quay-edge. It was necessary to move on somewhere. 

Why had not we too departed in the launch, you 
may ask. Merely because we should have looked 
like marauders who perpetrated an outrage and ran 
away. If the Allies were to have any proper control 
of the district, our opponents overt or covert in Canea 
must be cowed. Save for that reason, the whole 
affair would have been conducted more quietly; but 
the moral effect was worth some risk. 

I looked round for a place of retreat, and the 
Prefect's offices at an angle of the quay close by 
caught my eye. To pay a call on him would be a 
distinctly humorous way of escape from a serious pre- 
dicament. I asked a man standing near, as loudly as 
I could amid the uproar, whether the Prefect would 
be in at this hour, and began pushing my way in that 
direction. Word spread where we were going, and 
the crowd, agog with excitement over the latest turn 
of events, moved with us to the house. There was a 
flight of outside steps leading up to the first floor 
where the Prefect's own apartments were. I left the 
four petty officers at the top of the steps to stop any 
incursion, and had myself announced. 

Once closeted with the Prefect, I informed him that, 
since I had had the pleasure of drinking coffee with 
him half an hour ago, a grave incident had occurred, 
which I hoped would in no way disturb our friendly 
relations. Two prominent merchants of the local 
community had been arrested and were now on board 
the trawler which he could see just leaving for Suda. 
I had brought with me copies of certain letters which 



112 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

had fallen into my hands; if he would be good 
enough to read them, he would not be surprised 
at the action we had been compelled to take. We 
should of course have preferred to have had resort to 
the assistance of the police; but in the time of his 
predecessor a most lamentable occurrence had shaken 
our confidence in them. A Bulgarian spy had been 
provided with a police-escort to facilitate his move- 
ments in the neighbourhood of our anchorage; and 
the police-orders issued on that occasion were in my 
possession. The necessity therefore for direct inter- 
vention by us on this present occasion would be self- 
evident to the Prefect; and we merely ventured to 
hope that he, once established in his new post, would 
so control the police as to make it unnecessary for us 
to repeat such action in future. 

He replied very properly that the incident was a 
distressing breach of municipal law and order which it 
would be his duty to investigate and to report to his 
government; but I thought that he appreciated the 
humour of the situation (a rare trait in a Greek) and 
moreover was not ill-disposed towards us. He asked 
me to excuse him a moment, saying that he must 
telephone at once to the Chief of Police, and I 
suggested that, while he was doing so, he should 
mention that both he himself and the Senior Naval 
Officer at Suda would hold the Chief of Police 
responsible if there were any improper manifestation 
of popular feeling against me and my party when we 
were driving back through the town to Suda. That 
obviously tickled his fancy, and we parted in the end 
very amicably, he informing me that he must send to 
the S.N.O. a formal protest against so irregular a pro- 



FRITZ & CO. 113 

ceeding, and I assuring him that we would answer it in 
the spirit in which it was sent. I had in fact judged 
him rightly; he was all for the Entente, though 
disguising temporarily his sympathies; a few weeks 
later he was among the first to declare for Venizelos. 

There the adventure ended. We descended from 
the Prefect's office, packed ourselves, all five together, 
into a cab which I had in waiting, and drove off by 
the route I had arranged, alert to watch for any 
person, particularly if he should be wearing a fez, who 
might show signs of hostility, but actually provoking 
little more than curiosity and comment. 

As for our prisoners, who reached Suda not long 
after us, they persisted in a total denial of any knowl- 
edge of such letters as we held, and maintained that 
they had had no dealings of any sort, commercial, 
financial, or social, with any person in Piraeus or 
Athens. They were accordingly forwarded to Mudros 
with the evidence and a report, and were passed on 
from there for internment at Malta. Our original 
intention of searching their office at Canea at the time 
of the raid had had to be abandoned as incompatible 
with the project of creating a sensation; but one of 
our prisoners had the keys of their safe in his pocket, 
and with these we might have an opportunity of 
searching for other papers of interest later on. 

The scare which we had given to the people of 
Canea was illustrated by various items of information 
which reached me. First, a troublesome enemy, the 
head of the local efcaf, or Mohammedan religious 
centre, who by virtue of that position exercised also 
much political influence of a Turcophile and therefore 
Germanophile tendency, was reported to have made a 



114 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

bonfire of papers in his courtyard within an hour of 
the arrest of the Sourourzade. A few days later a 
Mohammedan of Suda, who had long been on my 
black-list as the other's local agent, came on board, 
while our prisoners were still there, on some flimsy 
pretext of wanting a licence as bumboatman, which he 
knew would be refused to him. Presumably he 
wished to learn from one of our interpreters (we 
had a Mohammedan at the time) whether the pris- 
oners were still with us, and hoped perhaps to get some 
message carried to them. Having nothing tangible 
against him or his master, I thought a little discomfort 
of mind was the best medicine that I could administer 
to them. So I sent for the man, and adopting the 
Oriental style of mystery, said: "Go, say to your 
master, 'That which I went to seek, I found not, and 
that which I went to speak, remains unspoken. Yet 
bring I you a message for which you look not; and 
the message is this: fire hath two uses, to consume 
and to illumine' " — but it is better in the Greek, 
vacbavitti koX va cbavenovti, "to make unseen {i.e. 
destroy) and to make visible." I believe the message, 
which the emissary learnt by heart before I let him 
go, troubled his master, who certainly ceased from 
troubling me. 

Ceased, that is, unless he was the instisrator of a 
message which reached both the British Consul and 
myself from an anonvmous source soon afterwards, 
namely, that some of the Young Turk party in Canea 
had pledged themselves to assassinate the Senior 
Naval Officer, the Consul, and me. The Mohamme- 
dans then, it would appear, had taken the raid seriously 
to heart; and this produced, I think, a certain revulsion 



FRITZ & CO. 115 

of feeling in our favour on the part of the Christian 
population who always love to see a Mohammedan 
discomfited. But even more perhaps the fear which 
we had inspired won us support such as no policy 
of conciliation would have secured. For the Greek 
soul is semi-Oriental soil, wherefrom a man reaps 
not that which he has sown : from the seed of affection, 
never so sedulously scattered, he will haply garner a 
harvest of contempt; but fear well planted and rooted 
will bear for her fruit esteem. 

Then lastly there was a quite casual and undesigned 
event which confirmed mv opinion that our opponents' 
nerves were shaken. One of our trawlers happened 
to anchor one morning off Canea and send in a boat 
for some fruit and vegetables. The shrewd folk were 
not to be caught napping twice, and there was a stam- 
pede of the conscience-stricken up from the quav into 
the bv-streets of the town, and they did not reappear 
till the fruit had been bought. 

The raid, we were haopv to feel, had been a highly 
successful enterprise, both in the capture of the local 
agents of Fritz & Co., and in the moral effect produced 
upon those who had underrated the rival concern. 
But the ultimate view which I came to take of the 
affair puts me in mind of an old story. A lady paving 
a parochial visit to a woman whose daughter had latelv 
been married, asked her whether the girl was well and 
happv in her new home. "Ay, ma'am, well enough," 
replied the woman; "she can't abide her man, but there 
be ave summat." 

There was "summat" to qualify our happiness too. 
The brothers Sourourzade were innocent. 



116 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

PART II.— THE RIDDLE 

The unravelling of the plot against them — for plot 
it had been — was a long and tedious business and occu- 
pied months during which uneasiness developed into 
definite suspicion, suspicion into moral conviction, 
and conviction needed only some tangible and legal 
evidence before action could be taken to repair the 
injustice done. 

I was uneasy when I learnt in what esteem the 
brothers Sourourzade were held by persons of high 
standing well acquainted with them. The Italian 
Consul in particular, though he agreed that on the 
evidence we could have taken no other course than to 
arrest them, remained at least puzzled and not wholly 
convinced of their guilt. He had been many years in 
Canea and knew them well. His, I could see, was a 
genuine personal opinion, unaffected in this case by 
the somewhat ill-dissimulated Italian policy of stand- 
ing well with the Mohammedans rather than with the 
Christians of Crete, and preparing for a closer rap- 
prochement with Turkey after the war than with 
Greece. At this time also I first made the personal 
acquaintance of the agent Sakir, who had been working 
for, and reporting to, the British Consul, and I pro- 
foundly disagreed with the latter' s estimate of him. 
Loquacious and conceited to an extraordinary degree, 
he appeared to me an undesirable type of agent, and 
on his general appearance and manner I should have 
written him down a rogue. In Greece, in default of 
evidence to the contrary, it is wiser to assume 
dishonesty. 

I was sufficiently impressed by my first judgment 



FRITZ & CO. 117 

of him to institute some quiet inquiries into the 
character which he bore and the company which he 
kept. He had appeared as witness in a local lawsuit 
two or three years previously, in which, in the 
judgment both of the court and of the general public, 
he had committed wilful perjury. His moral character 
was on a low level even for a town as unspeakably 
corrupt as Canea. And finally, as I knew, he had com- 
mitted forgery in the Sourourzade affair in order to 
get possession of letters from the post-office. 

This last fact, it may seem at first sight, should 
not have weighed against him. The forgery was 
committed ostensibly and, as far as I then knew, 
properly in the course of a secret-service agent's 
ordinary duties. But here comes in one of the 
paradoxes of secret-service work. Any man in whom 
you repose such confidence as to let him lie, steal, and 
forge at discretion on your behalf must before all 
things be honest. You may permissibly employ a 
burglar or other specialist criminal for a given piece 
of work at his own risk and pay him according to 
results, as you might employ a mechanic to make a 
particular wheel or spindle for some new machine you 
were devising; the purpose and use of it are not his 
concern and are kept from his knowledge. But the 
salaried agent of the secret service, just like the 
engineer who assists you in assembling your new 
machine or any material part of it, must be a man 
whom you can trust. Even a high salary will not 
assure his honesty; it will only have the effect of 
putting up prices against those who would bribe him 
if he is dishonest; he and they may agree a figure at 
which the risk of losing his salary is compensated by 



118 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

the sure profit of his treachery. You must know then 
that in his private capacity your agent is not addicted 
to theft or forgery or other corrupt practices. His 
motive for service must be one of two, either patriot- 
ism pure and simple, or a personal doglike devotion to 
his employer or those whom his employer represents. 
The seemingly dishonourable actions which his duty 
involves must be inspired by the one honourable 
motive. He must be an honest man, versatile in the 
seasonable use of dishonesty, enjoying it even as an 
intellectual game, and playing the game with a 
humorous zest. 

An ideal perhaps; but I have known men who 
came near to realising it, one by patriotism, two others, 
less educated men, by sheer personal devotion, — a 
lighthouse-keeper who had eaten the bread of the 
French, as he said, for many years, and manipulated 
his light therefore, if ever he sighted an enemy sub- 
marine, as a warning to our shipping, thereby risking 
his livelihood, now paid by the Greek Government, 
without thought of reward; and a peasant for whom 
no labour or danger was too great provided that he 
was doing my personal bidding. Rare types these, I 
grant, and not to be obtained in bulk, so that you 
must needs fall back on some agents of commoner 
clay. Yet the patriotic or personal devotion must 
animate these too, or you had better leave them 
unemployed. Say that their pasts will not bear close 
scrutiny; still that devotion, if strong and genuine, 
may render them temporarily honest in the one cause 
which they have at heart. I had one such agent, a 
dignitary of the Greek Church, whose past career was 
not unblemished. But he was a fanatic. His creed 



FRITZ & CO. 119 

was "the end sanctifies the means," and he professed 
himself ready to cut his mother's throat in the cause 
of Venizelos and the British, — a proceeding which I 
should have deprecated even had it not been irrelevant. 
I knew what he was or had been, and showed him 
that I knew. When he asked with what number he 
was to sign his reports in lieu of his name, I assigned 
him 666; and he possessed humour enough under all 
his fanaticism to take the trust well. I trusted him 
in much, and he did good service. 

Now Sakir on the contrary showed no symptom of 
devotion to any cause or person. He had not been 
honest in the past; there was no motive discernible to 
make and keep him honest in the present. His 
recent forgery was probably on a par with his former 
perjury, — committed with an eye to his own interests 
or advancement. He might well be one of the 
Levantine or other scallywags with which Athens 
teemed and Canea was adequately provided, men who 
passed from one secret service to another and pre- 
ferred working for both sides simultaneously. 

And there was yet a third personal factor in my 
uneasiness. I made the acquaintance of young 
Sourourzade, the son of one of our prisoners, in the 
course of arrangements concerning an adequate ward- 
robe for them. He made no secret of his family's 
sympathy with Turkey, but convinced me that he at 
least was not privy to any dealings with Fritz & Co., 
and was completely persuaded of his father's and 
uncle's innocence. I gave him an outline of the 
evidence against them, contained in the three 
letters, and told him to produce rebutting evidence if 
he could. Shortly afterwards he asked me for the 



120 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

keys of the office, so that he might carry on the 
business as best he could. Here was a good test. I 
replied that he should have the keys if he would agree 
that the Italian Consul and I should first open the safe 
and any drawers we wished in his presence, and have 
access to all the papers they contained. He could 
consult his family in the matter before he replied. 

The family accepted, and one night the Italian 
Consul and I were quietly admitted to the office. The 
safe gave us some trouble, for, though the two keys 
of it turned in their locks, the door would not open, 
and I was beginning to suspect that it had been 
purposely tampered with; but, having espied an adze 
lying in the corner beside the safe, I got the edge of 
its blade into the crack of the door, and using the big 
leverage of the implement prised it open. There had 
been no wilful tampering with it; the obstacle had been 
only one bolt which just failed to clear its socket. 
We spent an hour or so looking through the papers 
both from the safe and from various desks, but found 
nothing incriminating. There was indeed a small 
amount of correspondence with Athens, a fact conflict- 
ing with the statement of the prisoners that they had 
no dealings whatsoever with anyone there; but it 
merely concerned some trusteeship which they might 
well have momentarily forgotten. The family had 
done well to accept my challenge to a search. 

Another search elsewhere now suggested itself. 
Sakir had informed the British Consul, when he first 
obtained the two letters addressed to Velisarios 
Sourouris from the post-office, that he had learnt from 
a former post-office employe that others letters had 
arrived previously addressed to Velisarios and had been 



FRITZ & CO. 121 

claimed by the brothers Sourourzade. If any of these 
had been registered or express letters like the two in 
our possession, a record of their receipt would exist in 
the books of the post-office. There was now no diffi- 
culty in consulting these. Since the raid larger public 
events had changed the political situation. We had 
had our revolution, and the Provisional Government 
was now securely installed. The Governor gave me 
free access to all official records of the post-office, and 
the Italian Consul and I went through the whole lists 
of registered and express letters from the beginning of 
the war; but the name of Velisarios occurred no- 
where, save in connection with the two letters we held. 
I took the opportunity however of possessing myself 
of the forged authority by which Sakir had obtained 
these two. 

The negative result of these two searches was 
clearly no negligible fact. It was distinctly disconcert- 
ing. It had been strange that the bundle of papers 
removed haphazard by Sakir's burglar from the office 
of the Sourourzade should have contained an in- 
criminating document, and that our scrutiny of all 
the papers locked away in the safe and elsewhere had 
discovered no corroborative evidence. It was almost 
equally strange that none of the letters to Velisarios 
other than the two which Sakir had obtained should 
have been sent by either registered or express post. 
These considerations, reinforcing the doubts engen- 
dered by the personal characters of the chief persons 
concerned, decided me to ask for the return of the 
letters which had been sent to Mudros along with the 
report on the whole case. 

While I was awaiting them, Sakir came to see me. 



122 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

He told me that soon after the arrest of the brothers, 
he had received a mysterious telegram from Athens 
with which he had not liked to bother the Consul or 
me at the time. This telegram had now been followed 
up by a definitely threatening letter. He produced 
both. The telegram, couched in colloquial language, 
ran: "Do not stir up the mud, or we will get you into 
trouble" ; the letter contained a plain threat against 
his life; both were signed "Demotakos." He felt 
sure, he said, that his connexion with the Sourourzade 
affair had been discovered, and he wanted to leave 
Canea. He could speak Turkish as readily as Greek, 
and was prepared to go as a secret-service agent any- 
where in the Turkish Empire. He suggested that he 
might be useful to us at Baghdad. 

I distrusted him on his whole bearing more than 
ever, and felt a strong desire that he should not leave 
Canea just yet. So I pretended to take the matter au 
grand scrieux and decided to keep him amused for 
some time with the notion of going on a secret mission 
to Baghdad. I therefore pointed out that Baghdad 
was a long way outside my area, and I could do 
nothing in the matter without corresponding first with 
our authorities in Egypt. He could come back in a 
week or ten days and see if I had any news for him. 
Meanwhile I should like to keep the telegram and 
letter in the hope of identifying this Demotakos, who 
had written on paper dated as from a certain hotel in 
Athens. Sakir professed to have no idea who the man 
might be. 

I had some inquiries made whether any Demotakos 
was known in Canea; but the name was totally un- 
known. Demotakis is a frequent surname there, but 



FRITZ & CO. 123 

the ending in -os is not Cretan; it belongs to the main- 
land district of Maina and, I believe, to some of the 
Ionian Islands. Nothing could be learnt from the 
Athens hotel either about any such visitor. 

After some days of fruitless inquiry I re-examined 
the telegram. It had all the appearance of being 
genuine, but I had not hitherto removed a slip of thin 
paper pasted over the signature. Sakir had done this, 
he had told me, some time previously when he had 
shown the telegram to a friend but had thought best 
to keep to himself for the time the sender's name. I 
had been able to read the signature however by 
holding the telegram up against the light, and it 
appeared to be the same name as on the letter. Now 
however for greater assurance I steamed the pasted 
slip and removed it. The name had originally been 
Demotakis a la Cretoise and had been altered to Demo- 
takos, — carefully altered too, for the reverse of the 
paper, which had rested on the carbon sheet used by 
the telegraph-clerks for writing out each message in 
duplicate, showed a bluish-black u o" as well as the 
original letter. If then the alteration had been made 
by Sakir as I surmised, — for why else should he have 
sought to obscure it with a slip of paper pasted on 
top? — he deserved some credit for attention to detail 
in placing a piece of carbon paper underneath while he 
made his own alteration. And my surmise was right; 
I verified it afterwards by reference to the records in 
the telegraph office. 

My interpretation of Sakir's latest move then was 
this. Some Demotakis of his acquaintance in Canea 
had sent him the telegram in question from Athens, 
not necessarily in connexion with the Sourourzade 



124 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

affair at all. He had decided to use it for our mystifi- 
cation, but foreseeing that we should institute inquiries 
about the persons named Demotakis and perhaps trace 
the sender of the telegram, had altered one letter of 
the name in such a way as to suggest that the person 
in question was not a Cretan. He had then got some 
friend to write him a letter signed Demotakos — it was 
not in Sakir's own handwriting — in confirmation and 
amplification of the telegram. It certainly looked as 
if Sakir were an adept in falsification and forgery. 

Then at last the three incriminating letters came 
back to me. There was every reason now to scan 
each detail of them closely. I felt convinced that 
they were forgeries, but it still had to be proved. 
The sight of them recalled the fact that we had never 
succeeded in identifying the ironmongery-concern in 
Piraeus whose business-heading stood at the top of 
the third letter, the letter which was found among the 
papers purloined from the Sourourzade's office. Our 
Athens Intelligence Service had apparently not both- 
ered about ascertaining the exact address (the heading 
gave the name of the firm and Piraeus only) or at any 
rate had sent us no information on the subject. That 
Service however had now shifted its base to Syra, 
owing to the massacres of December the first, and was 
of no further use to us. So I instructed one of my 
agents to test the firm's existence and ascertain its full 
address by writing to ask for a quotation for certain 
goods. No answer was received, but neither was his 
letter returned through the dead-letter department. 
It might or might not be a bogus name invented by 
Sakir. I learnt later that it was. Sakir had had the 
paper printed in Canea, explaining to the printer that 



FRITZ & CO. 125 

a business friend from Piraeus, who was stopping with 
him, had run out of his firm's stationery and wanted 
some fifty sheets of paper printed with their heading 
to go on with. 

For the present however the actual script of the 
three letters, one written by hand, the other two typed, 
occupied me most. If Sakir had procured the writing 
of them, the chances were strong that he had done so 
locally in Canea, and that those two of them which 
we knew had come through the post had been sent 
by the hand of some friend to Athens to be dispatched 
from there. The third had been found among papers 
from the Sourourzade's office, had no envelope belong- 
ing to it, and very probably had not been through the 
post, though it had been folded as if for placing in an 
envelope. Still I knew that Sakir had an eye for 
detail, and it was quite likely that he had inserted the 
letter among the papers, and pinned it to another as it 
was found, after his burglar had stolen those papers 
from the office. But these details obviously could be 
elucidated later if the handwriting or the typed script 
of the letters could first be identified. 

In connexion with the handwriting I obtained as 
complete a list as possible of the Sourourzade's 
personal enemies or business rivals, as well as of 
Sakir's more intimate friends, together with certain 
other suspects, and by various means samples of their 
handwriting were obtained for me. One of these 
suggested a somewhat startling aspect of the whole 
affair. I had now been supplied with copies of photo- 
graphs of a few of the Callimassiotis letters obtained 
by the French in Athens ; previously I had had only 
typed copies of their contents and a general description 



126 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

of their appearance. I was by no means sure that 
the one handwritten letter among our three was in 
the same writing as the photographs showed, though 
this had not disturbed me much for the reason that 
the envelopes too appeared to be addressed in yet a 
third hand undoubtedly distinct; and moreover our 
whole trouvaille had been submitted to the Intelligence 
Service at Athens who knew the Callimassiotis corre- 
spondence thoroughly, and had been accepted as 
belonging to the same series of letters. It was 
likely enough that Callimassiotis would have at least 
one confidential secretary writing some of his letters. 
But now, among my samples of various suspects' 
writing, surely here was a handwriting the exact 
counterpart of that shown in the Callimassiotis photo- 
graphs. But no; almost equally surely, it was not 
the handwriting of the Sourourzade letter on which I 
was actually engaged. 

I confess I was bewildered. The man whose 
sample of handwriting I had before me was a native 
of Canea, now for some time past residing at Piraeus. 
My record of him was black. Formerly in Canea 
he had been in the employ of the German and 
Austrian Consuls, and had on one occasion so imposed 
upon the British and Italian Consuls as to be taken 
into their confidence and accompany the former on 
a journey of secret investigation. I possessed a copy 
of his triumphant and scoffing report of that journey 
among other papers of interest which I had removed 
from the vacant Austrian consulate. Did he after- 
wards perchance become secretary to Callimassiotis, 
seeing that the correspondence was in his writing? 
And was Sakir so intimate a friend of his, that he 



FRITZ & CO. 127 

had acquainted Sakir with Callimassiotis' activities? 
Or could Sakir himself by any chance be Velisarios? 
As intimate friend or as actual accomplice, he obviously 
might or would possess the necessary knowledge 
for forging the letters incriminating the brothers 
Sourourzade; for that he had forged them I still felt 
sure, though it puzzled me to guess whence he had 
derived the necessary knowledge. Our Consul assured 
me that he had employed him merely to find a man 
named Velisarios, and not admitted him further into 
his confidence. 

Or alternatively what if the mysterious writer with 
the black record had in fact never become secretary 
or clerk to Callimassiotis? Why then, if the evidence 
of handwriting was strong enough, the whole 
Callimassiotis correspondence must be a "forgery no 
less than the Sourourzade letters. Was Gregory — 
so I will name this new figure in the story — was 
Gregory in league with Sakir? Were they partners 
in the preparation of forged documents designed to 
be sold to us amateurs in secret service? If so, 
Gregory had indeed brought off a coup in Athens; 
a large price, I believed, had been paid; but Sakir — 
no, the little money he got would not have repaid his 
work and risk; some other motive must have inspired 
him. 

But this unforeseen development did not distract me 
from studying the typewritten letters too. One thing 
was evident: they had both been typed on the same 
machine, and that machine was not in first-rate order. 
Six small defects in the script were visible. Two 
characters inclined slightly to the right, and another 
to the left; the iota struck just too high, above the 



128 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

line of the other letters; the circumflex accent was 
consistently thick and blurred; and, most significant 
of all, one character was from a wrong font, not in 
keeping with the rest of the type; the machine must 
have been damaged at some time and repaired from 
local resources. Quite obviously there would not 
be more than one typewriter in Canea, nor for 
that matter in the world, possessing precisely these 
six defects and no others : and if, as I believed, that 
machine was in Canea, some day I ought to trace 
it. Quantities of typewritten matter came under my 
eye in the form of passports, bills of lading, and other 
documents incidental to traffic; and I instructed an 
agent too to write short inquiries on any subject he 
liked to a number of business houses in Canea and 
to keep for me all typewritten replies. 

But it was aboard an outgoing ship that I at last 
found the clue. A laissez-passer was presented for 
my inspection, and I recognised the type at once. 
The document was issued and stamped by the Mayor 
of Canea; but what was this? A second paragraph 
had been inserted above the official stamp, typed on 
a different machine. I inquired of the passenger, 
"Where did you get this laissez-passerV "At the 
Mayor's office." "They typed it for you there?" 
"Yes." "Why did you go there a second time to 
get an addition made?" He stared at me as if I 
were Sherlock Holmes ; yet obviously he had not 
asked for the addition to be made when the paper 
was first handed to him, or the machine on which it 
had just been typed would probably have been used 
again. The reason he finally gave for the addition 
was perfectly good, and I left him mystified with the 



FRITZ & CO. 129 

wonders of the Intelligence Service while I possessed 
the information I wanted. There were at least two 
machines in use in the Mayor's office; the one on 
which passports and such-like were usually typed — 
I had naturally seen dozens of them — was in good 
order; but there was an older machine as well which 
happened to have been used on this occasion. 

I visited the Mayor, who was a good friend of 
ours, and astonished him too with my knowledge of 
his typewriters, one in good condition, the other old 
and repaired. The deductions had been quite right. 
He himself typed for me on thin paper with the old 
machine a number of words and phrases from the 
Sourourzade letters; I placed them in position over 
the corresponding words in the originals, and held 
the two papers against the light. The letters and 
their defects coincided perfectly. So then Sakir had 
had the incriminating letters typed at the Mayor's 
office in Canea; their whole subsequent career had 
been a complicated fraud; and the brothers Sourour- 
zade had been arrested on forged evidence. 

The next step was clear. I sent Sakir a message 
that I had news for him and could see him next 
morning. He came, confident that I was now ready 
to start him on a secret mission to Baghdad. I told 
him that I knew of a place for which he seemed well 
suited (but I was thinking not of Baghdad, but of the 
internment camp at Malta). However, before we 
went into details, I wanted to ask him one or two 
things about the Sourourzade affair. He had been 
in the thick of it. Did he feel absolutely convinced 
of their guilt? I confessed that I had had some 
misgivings; was there any fact or consideration which 



130 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

inclined him to the view that they ought to be released? 
None, he said. 

His last chance of confession and of mercy was 
gone. He was ready to continue his fraudulent 
career, going to Baghdad as the confidential agent of 
us whom he had been deceiving, and leaving the 
Sourourzade brothers, the victims of his fraud, in their 
wrongful imprisonment. I put him under arrest, had 
him searched, and consigned him straight to the cells. 
Then I took his keys, which the search had produced, 
and went to Canea where I had already arranged for 
two gendarmes to accompany me to a house in the 
Mohammedan quarter. 

There was a mass of interesting papers in Sakir's 
room, — scraps of erotic poems of his own composing; 
notes which threw a lurid light on his private life; 
the rough draft of a newspaper article in which he 
advocated that "the dogs of Franks" should be left 
to wallow in their own bloodshed, to the end that "we 
Turks" may have the last laugh; a list of persons to be 
denounced for various causes; and — to complete the 
evidence against him — a pencil draft of two of the 
Sourourzade letters, the French one being in its orig- 
inal Greek form as he composed it, with notes of 
equivalent French phrases below for which he had 
evidently consulted the dictionary. 

It remained now only to clear up the whole 
tangle. With the concurrence of the Governor of 
the island I arranged for the arrest of the nine or ten 
persons whom Sakir had noted for denunciation. Some 
of them were on my black list already, and all of them, 
if not guilty of anything themselves, might at least be 
useful witnesses against their denouncer. I sat in 



FRITZ & CO. 131 

fact for three days as examining magistrate — a most 
irregular proceeding — at the Canea police-station. 
I sentenced only one person to imprisonment, and 
that, I may say, not on Sakir's evidence, though in 
this case he had got hold of a true story and not 
invented the charge. Another was placed under 
police supervision, and the remainder were acquitted. 
I learnt however some astounding facts about Sakir. 
Recently at night, when no British officers or men 
would be about the town, he had been swaggering 
about in a quasi-British uniform — (I had found the 
cap appertaining to it in his room) — giving out that 
he now held a high position in the British Intelligence 
Service, and was likely to be appointed shortly British 
Consul; and, for all the Greek astuteness, he had 
gulled and terrorised quite a number of persons. 

But the most interesting witness was the burglar, 
Mehmet, who, though he had rifled the Sourourzade's 
office at the instance of Sakir, figured also in his 
proscribed list; probably Sakir was not above black- 
mailing his former employe. Now Mehmet was 
already among my less reputable acquaintances. He 
is the only burglar I have known well, and I had a 
liking for him. He was one of the oddities in human 
nature : proud of his lineage, and I believe he really 
came of good family: proud of his literary attain- 
ments in Turkish and his knowledge of the Koran, 
though his education had been interrupted at the age 
of fourteen or so by his father's sudden death, and the 
Greek which he spoke was a corrupt argot almost 
destitute of inflexion : a good father devoted to his 
ten children, and crying like a child himself at the 
thought of being sent to prison and leaving them 



132 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

hungry: timid and nervous as a child too beforehand 
about the risks which his profession involved, yet 
confident and resourceful when the hour for action 
came : lying habitually because the sort of questions 
put to him were embarrassing and their true answers 
compromising, and yet in a quaint manner trustworthy 
if his fears were removed: a lovable child though 
singularly depraved and long past reform or penitence. 
The Greek doctor who had attended his ten children 
from their birth without fee felt the same affection for 
him. 

Once soothed, and assured that Sakir was safely 
locked up and could not hurt him, and that he himself 
should not go to prison but should even have a 
present for his children if he would tell the truth, — 
but it took a long time, — he told me the story of the 
theft of papers from the Sourourzade's office in this 
wise: "Sakir bad man. Sakir find Mehmet (he 
always referred to himself by name in the third person) 
and say to Mehmet, Mehmet go into Sourourzade 
office and bring papers from drawer in table. Office 
door only tied with string midday when people 
asleep. Mehmet take bag with vegetables, untie 
string, slip in, no one see him, push papers under 
vegetables, bring to Sakir. Next morning Sakir send 
Mehmet to Consul; papers all neat and tidy now; 
Consul pleased." So it was as I had supposed: 
Mehmet had not gone straight from the scene of his 
theft to the consulate, as we had been told; Sakir 
had had the papers in the interval, and had placed 
among them the third and most outrageous of the 
letters. Yes, Mehmet, even Mehmet, had a right to 
call Sakir "bad man." 



FRITZ & CO. 133 

It was now Sakir's own turn to be interrogated; 
and those interrogations recurred at intervals of three 
or four days for the whole five or six weeks which 
he spent in the cells. He made a fresh and voluble 
confession each time, abandoning the lies he had told 
on the former occasion as soon as my inquiries had 
proved them false; but strangely enough each con- 
fession contained also one or two true facts. He gave 
me for instance one by one the names of the various 
persons who had written his false letters, addressed 
his envelopes, carried the combined results to Athens 
and posted them there, forged the authority to the 
post-office, sent the mysterious telegram to him, and 
copied out for him the threatening letter to reinforce 
the effect of the telegram. He had never had recourse 
to the same person twice. They were all young men 
of his acquaintance whom he had induced to write at 
his dictation by flattering them about their fine 
penmanship, or beguiling them with a tale of some 
hoax he was playing. Only one of them did I suspect 
to have any knowledge of the way in which he had 
been used; for he came on board to see me with a 
cock-and-bull story about a submarine to cover his 
intention of communicating, if possible, with Sakir. 
By a curious chance his name had been given to me 
by Sakir in his latest confession, on the previous day 
only. So I told him it would be no good for me to 
send him to investigate the submarine rumour for me 
unless he could send me a report in intelligible French. 
He professed to be competent to do so, and I set him 
to write a few lines as a test. When he had done so, 
I pointed out to him that the letter written in French 
in the Sourourzade dossier was in the handwriting of 



134 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

which he had just given me a sample, warned him of 
the folly of inditing letters in false names for a man 
like Sakir, and of coming to me with faked submarine- 
yarns, and consigned him too to the cells to think 
things over. 

But the two things known only to Sakir which I 
wished to extract from him were his motive for 
singling out the brothers Sourourzade and the source 
of his information concerning the Callimassiotis corre- 
spondence. 

This latter he confessed in his first interrogation, 
and in that one point I believe the first of his con- 
fessions was true, though actual proof was never 
obtained. He stated that he had asked a man, whom 
I will call appropriately Satanakis, if he knew any one 
named Velisarios. A few days later Satanakis met 
him and said that he had learnt that Velisarios was the 
name under which the brothers Sourourzade were 
receiving certain correspondence touching German 
submarines. Between them they conceived the notion 
(Sakir imputed to Satanakis the whole responsibility) 
of contributing to this correspondence. Satanakis 
suggested its general lines, Sakir elaborated it in 
detail. 

In testing the accuracy of this confession, which 
obviously might have been an attempt to shift the 
larger half of the guilt on to the shoulders of a 
perfectly innocent person, I discovered that Sakir had 
on several occasions paid visits to Satanakis under 
cover of night at the latter's house in Suda : and 
further, — here the hidden motive at last appeared, — 
Satanakis was known to have nursed for years past 
a vindictive hatred of the brothers Sourourzade. 



FRITZ & CO. 135 

On the cause of that hatred I will not dwell; suffice 
it to say that Satanakis had been, and still was (as I 
learnt from papers seized in his house), engaged in 
the foulest traffic known to civilisation, and that the 
brothers Sourourzade had saved one of his victims not 
indeed from dishonour, but at least from lifelong 
degradation. 

I arrested Satanakis. He was lying in bed, ill or 
shamming ill, with a loaded revolver under his pillow. 
It was not for the protection of his valuables, for he 
had none. An uneasy conscience was the only ex- 
planation of it. He was some weeks on board, where 
he was confronted with Sakir. He denied everything, 
and confessed nothing. No man could be convicted 
on the evidence of Sakir alone, even with the evidence 
of motive to corroborate it. After some weeks he 
was released. It mattered less in that he was far 
advanced in an incurable disease. If he is dead now, 
the world is cleaner. 

I learnt later how in all probability Satanakis had 
come to know about the Callimassiotis correspondence. 
One of the agents sent over from Athens to investigate, 
independently of the consuls, the Cretan issues involved 
therein was a native of Canea and an intimate friend 
of the Satanakis family. He had been told far more 
of the matter than there was any need for him to know. 
He was a man of courage and capacity in turbulent 
times, but lacked qualities essential in an agent, 
reticence and sobriety. I suspect that a bottle too 
many in Satanakis' company had been the forts et origo 
of all our trouble. 

Meantime we were negotiating with the home 
authorities for the release of the Sourourzade from 



136 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

Malta. Negotiating? Well, yes, that is the mot juste. 
We had cabled: "Sourourzade brothers arrested at 
Canea and interned at Malta last August are innocent. 
Letters incriminating them were forgery. Forger is 
in our hands. Request immediate release and repatria- 
tion of Sourourzade." You might expect the receiver 
of such a message to wire Malta, and repeat to Suda, 
"Brothers Sourourzade to be released and given pas- 
sage to Suda first opportunity." Not a bit of it. We 
had to wait, and wire again, and wait once more, and 
wonder what all the delay was about. 

And this is how I pictured it. A faultlessly attired 
old gentleman with cold feet sitting before a fire in 
the Foreign Office, and frowning at our message. 
He rings a bell. Enter an immaculate youth, his 
nephew. "Look here, Cuthbert, you remember that 
case we've had an endless fuss about, two Turks 
arrested by our naval people at Canea with most un- 
necessary publicity. The whole thing is a blunder, 
they say now. I wish to the devil we could teach the 
Navy caution. Bring me the file of that case, will 
you?" Exit Cuthbert, and re-enter with the required 
dossier; he has turned over a few pages and found the 
copies of the three incriminating letters. The old 
gentleman adjusts his glasses and reads them. "There 
you are. Three bogus letters, and they are hoaxed at 
once, and rush off and make a most compromising, 
most compromising, arrest in neutral territory. You 
and I, Cuthbert, would not have given ourselves away 
like that." Cuthbert's superior smile is a voucher for 
that, but he ventures to point out that the few pages 
which he has turned back are a report from the Consul, 
with which the old gentleman may like to refresh his 



FRITZ & CO. 137 

memory. There is a pause while he reads and the 
frown on his face grows portentous. "Upon my 
word, the Consul hoaxed too, and by his own agent! 
One service is as incompetent as another. This office 
will be needing reform next." There is another 
pause, which Cuthbert breaks: "Any reply to be sent, 
sir?" "Yes. No. Yes; instruct Malta that these 
Turks are provisionally to be accorded the most 
favourable treatment permitted by the regulations for 
select interned persons, and cite the number of the 
relevant Order in Council. That won't commit us to 
anything." 

The instruction is duly cabled to Malta, is initialled 
by the O.C. Internment Camp and passed to the 
Adjutant "for your information and necessary action, 
please." The Adjutant summons a sergeant. "Ser- 
geant, send a corporal with an interpreter to the hut 
where those two Turks are billeted — one a very fat 
man — you know the two I mean." "Yes, sir." "Tell 
them that they are classed as first-grade prisoners, and 
can now buy bottled beer up to a dozen a week each, 
or anything else in reason that they want from the 
canteen." The corporal conveys the message, and the 
brothers Sourourzade are left wondering whether the 
offer of beer is a preliminary to better news or an 
insidious attempt to convert them to Christianity. 

A week or two later the old gentleman in the 
Foreign Office, having finished with the Times in which 
some mention of Crete has caught his eye, picks up 
the Cretan dossier again. He turns to the later corre- 
spondence, the frown gathers, and he rings the bell 
with some impatience. Enter again nephew Cuthbert. 
"Look here, my boy, this is serious. Why didn't 



138 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

you remind me of these complications with Constanti- 
nople? I remember quite well now. It was only a 
short time ago that the Turkish government threatened 
reprisals against British prisoners unless the brothers 
Sourourzade were released. We wired to the naval 
people at Suda to ask what they thought about it. 
They replied that the Sourourzade family were con- 
nected by marriage with Enver or Talaat Bey — I 
forget which, it will be in the dossier — and that the 
threat of reprisals was presumably a bluff only, put up 
by some Turkish department at the instance of which- 
ever of those two it was. The people at Suda, I 
remember, represented very strongly that any clemency 
on our part would be interpreted as weakness out 
there, and we let them have their way. Just think, if 
only we had released those two prisoners as an act of 
grace then, as we were half inclined to do, we should 
have been saved all this trouble and loss of prestige." 
"It is too late for that now, sir; there is another 
cable just in from Suda requesting their early repatria- 
tion as an act of justice." "Damn the fellows; do 
they think I have nothing to do but clear up the mess 
they make?" 

Meanwhile I was damning the Foreign Office for 
the mess it was making by delay. When the Con- 
stantinople incident occurred, I had warned the 
Sourourzade family that they were going the wrong 
way to work. When subsequently Venizelos was 
pressed to intervene, I warned them again that political 
influence would have no more effect than enemy 
threats; and Venizelos' own reply to the family that 
they must trust to English justice had reinforced my 
warning. "Prove the prisoners' innocence," I had 



FRITZ & CO. 139 

said, "as against the strong documentary evidence of 
their guilt, and they will be released forthwith." And 
now I had myself proved their innocence, and that 
"forthwith" had to be interpreted not in a naval but 
in a diplomatic sense. Our prestige was threatened, 
but only by the old gentleman's dilatory caution. 

But that menace disappeared and was forgotten 
when once the brothers Sourourzade returned as guests 
aboard a British destroyer. I took the picket-boat 
over and brought them aboard the S.N.O.'s ship, 
where I explained the whole story to them. They 
took it very well, and their gratitude for their release 
was even embarrassing when they kissed my hand on 
the quarter-deck before leaving. They concurred in 
my suspicions of Satanakis, but would not prosecute 
either him or even Sakir. They much preferred that 
the latter should go to Malta in their stead. They 
wished only to resume their business in peace, and, as 
British permits were needed for trade with Egypt 
with which they chiefly dealt, it was easy to compensate 
them by giving to them a larger share of permits than 
to their competitors who had prospered by their 
absence. 

As for our prestige, if it had been strengthened by 
the sensational arrest of the Sourourzade when they 
were believed guilty, it was confirmed yet more by 
their sensational release. I accorded interviews to 
the newspaper men who wanted details (I had written 
privately to the Sourourzade family, though that letter 
too found its way into the public press), and having 
outlined the story guided their criticisms into the right 
channel. I expressed the deepest regret (which indeed 
I felt) for all that the Sourourzade family had suffered 



140 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

as victims of a criminal conspiracy. The evidence, as 
they could see, had been overwhelming and had 
completely deceived us. For the wrong we had done 
in error we had made what amends we could: for the 
deception practised upon us due punishment would be 
inflicted. British justice, it had been said, was slow 
but sure; yet it had one quality still greater than 
sureness; its miscarriages were indeed rare, but, if 
ever they occurred, it had the courage to acknowledge 
them openly and to repair them. And this became 
the text on which the newspapers discoursed, apply- 
ing for themselves the requisite superlatives. What 
nation, they asked, except the English, would have 
owned to a miscarriage of justice, detected only by 
themselves, and not have sought to cover it from 
sight? 

The question is of the rhetorical order: it does 
not require an answer; but it affords perhaps food for 
thought to him who would supply one. 

Thus then our heroes and villains all have played 
their parts and met their deserts, and the curtain may 
fall, to rise again only for a short epilogue sustained, 
contrary to all dramatic precedent, by an actor whom 
we know as yet only by his handwriting. It is 
Gregory; Gregory whose writing was so much the 
counterpart of that in which the Callimassiotis corre- 
spondence was writ, that I had wondered whether after 
deluding the consuls in Crete he had become 
Callimassiotis' secretary, or alternatively had forged 
that whole correspondence and made a handsome 
profit by deluding this time the French Secret Service 
in Athens. Yes, here was Gregory, come back to 
Crete with his passport in order and sublimely con- 



FRITZ & CO. 141 

fident that his old sins would not find him out. But 
here was his record too in my black-book of the 
"evil beasts" of Crete. An ex-employe of the enemy 
consuls could not be allowed to land: Malta was his 
proper destination. 

But his coming revived my interest in that old 
problem. True, there was no question any longer of 
his having been a confederate of Sakir in forgery, or 
of his having confided to him as a friend the knowl- 
edge of the Callimassiotis correspondence. Satanakis 
had been Sakir's informant and partner. But the 
handwriting remained. At his first interrogation I 
questioned him as to what he had been doing at 
Piraeus since he left Crete, and he gave me an account 
of the business in which he had been engaged. I 
verified the account. There was nothing to suggest 
that he had been in Callimassiotis' employ. He had 
amassed indeed far more money than even a well-paid 
confidential secretary could have saved from his salary. 
Pending a further interrogation I allowed him pen and 
paper in case he should wish to communicate with me. 
He evidently wrote fluently; there were long protests 
and appeals written sometimes to me in Greek, some- 
times to the S.N.O. in French; and his handwriting 
in both languages resembled closely that of the 
Callimassiotis correspondence. 

In sending him to Malta I suggested that this 
second charge against him should be investigated by 
an expert in handwriting either there or at home. 
This was never done. The Callimassiotis corre- 
spondence was now ancient history, and the authenticity 
of it was suspect for other reasons. For one thing it 
had been published by now in the newspapers, and 



142 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

various persons besides Callimassiotis involved therein 
had been able to disprove their complicity in the 
alleged intrigues of Fritz & Co., by means of an alibi 
or other convincing evidence; and further, in spite of 
the diligence with which a mass of independent agents 
had followed up every clue which the correspondence 
offered, none of those clues had led anywhere save 
into this Cretan labyrinth from which we had hardly 
extricated ourselves and the brothers Sourourzade. 
So it mattered really little whether Gregory or another 
were the culprit. The Callimassiotis correspondence, 
no less than the Sourourzade letters, was a forgery, 
and incidentally therefore this whole long story has 
really nothing to do with Fritz & Co. 



CHAPTER V 
THE REVOLUTION 

PART I.— A MIDSUMMER DAY'S DREAM 

In pursuance of my instructions to see what was 
wanted in Crete and to carry on, I soon came to see 
that a revolution was wanted. The policy of the 
Greek Government in all branches of its administra- 
tion was to obstruct us and to support our enemies : 
their confidential orders to the Cretan police were a 
sufficiently illuminating example. Isolated acts of 
repression, like our arrest of the Sourourzade brothers, 
might inspire fear enough to curb certain of their 
activities; but persistent hostility, working by all the 
secret methods at the Government's disposal, could 
only be met by the overthrow of the Government 
itself, and the replacement of its Germanophile officials 
by men friendly disposed towards us. 

Now obviously you cannot wire to a Vice-Admiral 
or to a Legation, "Request permission to have a 
revolution." They may want to know further details, 
such as whether you propose having it alone, or have 
induced any other persons to join you; and there is 
the further probability that the representatives of the 
Foreign Office may deem your project incautious and 
your request indiscreet. Certainly during the early 
summer of 191 6 our Legation in Athens would have 
been horrified at the suggestion of such an intrusion 

143 



144 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

into the domestic politics of a friendly and neutral 
country; and it was not until the end of July or 
August that the Entente Ministers there began to toy 
with the notion that the Protecting Powers, who were 
the guarantors of Greek independence, were entitled to 
protest against the unconstitutional position which the 
King had usurped and to demand the dissolution of 
the Chamber of Deputies, his partisans and nominees, 
and the holding of a general election. What a 
panacea ! The general election was to follow close 
upon the demobilisation of the Greek Army, so that 
in every constituency the King and his military clique 
would have disbanded officers and men (with arms 
probably not yet returned to their depots) to exercise 
peaceful persuasion upon the free and independent 
voter and, in case of need, the returning officer. Yet 
why criticise the Entente Ministers? The wise heads 
in counsel at the Peace Conference held or feigned a 
touching and childlike faith in the virtue and purity 
of plebiscites in Eastern Europe. 

As for Crete, the Protecting Powers' programme 
mattered little to us. If we had to have a general 
election, the constituencies of the island, excepting 
perhaps Candia, would go solid for supporters of 
Venizelos, unless the Government should send at least 
an army corps for demobilisation in their midst; and 
even in Candia it was hoped that the peaceful per- 
suasion organised by the Venizelist party would be 
stronger than that of their opponents. Meantime any 
propaganda on our part would serve equally well the 
purposes of a general election or of a larger and less 
constitutional movement. So I held my peace as to 
the revolution which I saw was wanted, and fulfilled 



THE REVOLUTION 145 

the remainder of my orders by carrying on quietly, 
without submitting my project for approval. 

It was well that I did so. The conflicting policies 
of the several Allies during this period were revealed 
clearly enough later on. Russia, owing to the family 
ties of her ruler and her general monarchic sympathies, 
was for maintaining King Constantine on the throne 
at any cost. Italy, welcoming any chaos and disunion 
by which Greece would forfeit any claim to terri- 
torial expansion after the war, preferred temporarily 
a king who was obviously ruining his country to a 
statesman who might revive her fortunes. France 
alone, I believe, was clear-sighted and whole-hearted 
in advocating a clean sweep of the royalist and military 
party and the restoration of Venizelos to power. 
England was vacillating and disposed to temporise: 
not only then, but even after the revolution when 
Venizelos' provisional government was installed at 
Salonica, up to the very eve of the Athens massacres 
of December the first, the British Legation was 
apparently still nursing the fatuous hope of effecting a 
reconciliation between Venizelos and the King and 
scoring a diplomatic triumph; while at home — what 
shall I say? Only this with certainty, that the Prime 
Minister of the day did grave disservice both to the 
Crown and to the country by giving to the House of 
Commons the false assurance that the national move- 
ment led by Venizelos was in no way anti-dynastic. 
I know what gossip prejudicial to loyalty his assurance 
unloosed. I know too that the national movement, 
though not solely or even primarily anti-dynastic, had 
aims which involved incidentally the fall of the 
dynasty. I know that later on, when Russia's power 



146 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

to intrigue was gone, and the French had their way in 
the removal of Constantine, and the question of his 
successor arose, Venizelos indeed wanted a king, while 
a mass of his adherents would have preferred a 
president, but no one in the nationalist movement, 
and by no means all the Royalists even, welcomed a 
scion of the same dynasty. Enough said: it is 
abundantly clear that a whole year before the expulsion 
of Constantine neither the diplomats of Athens nor the 
Powers they represented would have lent a kindly ear 
to a temporary lieutenant who suggested a revolution. 
Now the promotion of a revolutionary movement 
in Crete is far less difficult than it might prove in any 
other part of the world, excepting possibly the smaller 
South American republics. Under Venetian rule, and 
subsequently under Turkish, there were periods of the 
island's history which consisted in a series of insur- 
rections, separated only by a few years of oppression 
borne in grim silence pending the recuperation 
necessary before another outbreak. Between 12 12 
and 1365 there were eight insurrections against the 
Venetians. Then came some four centuries of such 
rigorous domination that not even in the period of 
transition from the power of Venice to that of Turkey 
did any opportunity occur for the assertion of the 
national spirit. It must have looked as if the Cretan 
spirit were broken; but the old traditions of hatred 
and vengeance must still have lived on, I think, in 
their stories and ballads of an heroic past. In 1770 
the second period of insurrectionc opened, and a 
second series of eight continued, with short intervals 
for recovery, down to 1897. These included the 
Cretan participation in the Greek War of Inde- 



THE REVOLUTION 147 

pendence from 1821 and onwards, and another pro- 
tracted insurrection from 1866 to 1869. This was 
followed by another revolt in 1878; by an outbreak, 
more in the nature of guerilla warfare by isolated 
bands, beginning in 1889 and coming to a head in the 
insurrection of 1896; and by yet one more insurrection 
in 1897, which at last compelled European inter- 
vention. It can hardly be claimed however that the 
Great Powers were successful in quelling the turbulent 
spirit of the island. Massacres organised by the 
Mohammedans in 1898 at Candia, in the course of 
which a number of English soldiers were shot down, 
were sternly punished on the spot by Admiral Noel; 
but the event drove the Powers to a formal and 
effective occupation of the chief towns of the island, 
while they attempted to conciliate the nationalist feel- 
ing of the Christians by appointing Prince George of 
Greece as High Commissioner. But this measure 
was regarded in Crete as one step only in the direction 
of deliverance from even the nominal suzerainty of 
Turkey, and towards complete union with Greece. 
Prince George however seemed unable to move the 
Powers to further action, and in 1905 Venizelos 
headed an armed movement at Therisos, which re- 
sulted in the departure of Prince George. In 1906 an 
ex-premier of Greece, Zaimis, took up the position of 
High Commissioner, and in the following year the 
Powers began to withdraw their army of occupation, 
hoping that the Cretans would chafe less at their 
anomalous regime, if the outward and visible signs of 
the military power which had imposed it were removed. 
But in 1908 new happenings in the Balkans reacted on 
Crete: Bulgaria had proclaimed herself an independent 



148 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

kingdom; Austria had annexed Bosnia and Herze- 
govina; Crete must realise her full aspirations too. 
The union with Greece was proclaimed, and the Great 
Powers accepted the fait accompli. 

There are then in Crete quite a number of men, 
living and still able-abodied, who have taken part in 
five or six revolutions, and have experience to enhance 
their natural powers of leadership; and indeed it caused 
some adverse comment, when we got to business once 
more, that the man selected to take charge in the 
Candia district had not had previous experience of so 
much as one revolution even in a subordinate capacity. 
Insurrection in fact is in Crete the traditional, one 
might almost say constitutional, method of remedying 
public grievances. Leaders and followers alike have 
both experience of their own and guns. Given only 
some opinion which they wish to assert, the traditional 
method of asserting it is easy, popular, and effective. 

At the outset obviously, in forming or stimulat- 
ing public opinion of a kind which will need expres- 
sion by this traditional method, it would be unwise for 
a foreigner to present to the independent Cretan any 
cut-and-dried scheme. Any agent or intelligence officer 
so engaged should have a receptive ear for any popular 
grievances which need redress or any popular aspira- 
tions as yet unsatisfied. He should get the common- 
folk to talk freely to him before he makes any sugges- 
tions to them. 

There was a convenient cafe at the village of 
Tsikalaria, some half-hour's walk from Suda, which 
served as a port of call for inhabitants of many of the 
mountain villages on their way to and from Canea, and 
another a mile or so east of Suda on the main road 



THE REVOLUTION 149 

to Retimo. Both these cafes were kept by staunch 
Venizelists, and, the politics of a Greek cafe being of no 
less importance to its customers than the quality of the 
drinks provided, I was assured of meeting in them a 
Venizelist clientiele. Peasants who had a drink and 
chat with a British naval officer at one of these on their 
way home from market of an afternoon were quite cer- 
tain to retail their experience and the conversation to 
a circle of friends that evening in a Venizelist cafe of 
their own village, — and it might be that some of those 
friends would repeat the narrative, as an account of 
their own first-hand experience, yet farther afield; 
for "the Cretans are alway liars," said or quoted the 
apostle, and I must confess that some even of the 
Venizelists were terminological inexactitudinarians. 

I spent many a half-hour in the course of an after- 
noon's stroll at one or other of these two resorts, and 
the cafe-keepers and I became cronies who sympathised 
with each other's views; I have no doubt that they 
helped to disseminate mine. My chats with them and 
with their customers turned largely, though not of 
course exclusively, on politics. Contemporary events 
which loomed large in their minds were the Bulgarian 
advance on the Macedonian front, with the loss of 
Cavalla and the surrender of Fort Roupel, and the 
entry of Roumania into the war. Many of them, 
though not all, wanted to be up and at the Bulgarians. 
Then too I used to turn the conversation on the 
more recent past, the union of Crete with Greece and 
the benefits or otherwise ensuing therefrom. The 
benefits, they felt, were none too manifest. True, 
they were free from the dominion of the hated Turk, 
but otherwise what had they gained? Their taxation 



150 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

was higher than ever, and the revenue derived from 
Crete was spent on the mainland. They too wanted 
roads, light railways, reservoirs, irrigation. And those 
mainlanders, and the Athens folk who were supposed 
to govern them and to spend all that revenue for the 
good of the people who paid it, — they were a sorry 
lot; any ten of them would run from two Cretans. 
They had seen what the mainlanders were worth in 
the Balkan wars; but a Cretan regiment now — that 
would clear Macedonia of these cursed Bulgarians. 
And Venizelos would have given them a chance to go, 
but for that cursed king of theirs. 

I sympathised. I have genuinely always felt that 
a profound mistake was made by Crete in looking 
upon union with Greece as the only alternative to 
Turkish misrule. Complete independence would have 
offered higher hopes for an essentially virile race. I 
pictured to them what might have been their present 
situation if that solution of the problem had been 
adopted. Their taxes during these past years would 
have been spent on the improvement of their own com- 
munications and industries; modern agricultural 
machinery might have been imported to turn their land 
to better account; their island might have been self- 
supporting now. Politically they would have been free 
to join Greece in liberating Epirus and Macedonia 
from the Turkish yoke, as in fact they had done ; they 
would be free now to strike another blow at the hated 
Bulgarian; they could ask from England the ships to 
transport their volunteers to the front to fight side by 
side with the English in this last great struggle for the 
overthrow of the Bulgarian and the Turk. Maybe 
they would have had a republic with Venizelos as their 



THE REVOLUTION 151 

president — president of the Cretan Republic, or per- 
haps of a greater iEgean Republic, a confederation of 
the Greek isles looking to a Cretan city as their me- 
tropolis. And what was Venizelos now? A prime min- 
ister deposed by the unconstitutional act of a worthless 
king — powerless. What a pity that all that might 
have been was only a dream ! Ah, if it were only not 
too late ! 

Not the whole idea at once, you understand, but in 
doses. And that vision of the iEgean Republic 
attracted them as I confess it attracted me and still 
attracts me. A confederation of those wonderful 
islands of the iEgean, wherein alone survives a pure 
strain of the old Greek blood; a little world belong- 
ing neither to the West nor to the East; enjoying 
freedom, yet not coveting progress as the Western 
world interprets it, nor measuring its weal with a 
tradesman's measure; looking to no foreign model of 
greatness, but foreseeing the fulfilment of its own 
stature; disdaining the bastard pedagogic speech of 
modern Athens, — debating, writing, teaching, perhaps 
in time even worshipping, each several island-state in 
its own true-born tongue; proud each of its customs, 
its dress, its industries, its ballads, its dances and pas- 
times; content with the frugal revenue of cornland 
and vineyard and olive-grove, of quarrying and 
forestry and mining, of flax and wool and silk, of 
sponge-fishing and all that the sea affords, laden in 
caiques to barter among themselves or in great ships to 
exchange against their few external needs. And their 
capital a new city perhaps of wide spaces bordered with 
trees, in shape a horse-shoe about Suda Bay, its 
wharves and warehouses on the southern shore, below 



152 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

the Canea-Retimo road and that light railway which 
would be the Cretans' pride; away westward, — with 
houses of wide verandahs dotted amid the olives on the 
slope towards Tsikalaria and that cafe wherefrom in a 
midsummer day's dream the yet unfounded city might 
be seen, — the residential quarter; below this, on the 
flatter ground at the head of the bay, the public 
gardens, on either side of a stream cleaner than now, 
with orange-groves sheltered by tall contrasting 
cypresses; and opposite, clear cut against the hills of 
the northern shore, the President's house, the Govern- 
ment offices, and the Parliament of the ^Egean 
Republic. And everywhere in our new city water in 
abundance carried from the river away behind Canea. 
Might not the dream have come true? Yes, if 
Venizelos too had dreamt it. But his vision was of 
the Greece to which he had united Crete made greater 
by the union of yet other lands redeemed from the 
same oppressor. Will she be greater, I wonder, or 
only larger? Will his statesmanship devise for her 
some division into provinces administered by honest 
and able lieutenant-governors on whom will devolve 
large powers now centralised in Athens? Can he find 
such men? If not, the union may not much outlast his 
lifetime; and if disintegration once begins and revolu- 
tions are afoot, Crete will be true to her traditions. 
Perhaps my programme may receive fresh considera- 
tion then. 

PART II.— THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS 

Meantime, besides the villagers of the mountains, 
there were also the townsfolk and semi-educated 



THE REVOLUTION 153 

classes in general to be taken into account, and the 
pabulum suitable for their minds consisted in no 
dreams or ideals. The iEgean Republic would have 
appealed little to them until the time should come for 
securing options on the sites round Suda Bay where 
the castles now built in the air would assume material 
form. Any propaganda adapted to their outlook must 
be of a more sordid type such as would serve equally 
the purposes of a general election, if that were forced 
upon us before the island was ripe for a revolution. 
The towns, and even the villages too, were being 
flooded with pamphlets of German origin, and steps 
had to be taken to counteract their influence. The 
publicity department of the British Legation in Athens 
supplied us with a mass of pamphlets designed 
to win sympathy for the Allies, and we had to 
organise the distribution of them throughout the 
island. 

As a matter of fact neither the British nor the 
German literature impressed me much with its 
suitability. It consisted mainly of tedious argument- 
ative treatises composed originally in London or 
Berlin and translated into the artificial Greek of the 
would-be learned periodical. The subject-matter too 
was largely ill-chosen : the causes of the war, and the 
responsibility for it which each side imputed to the 
other, interested no one; they wanted to know what 
the issue of it would be, and what profit would accrue 
to themselves if they should join the winning side 
betimes. The English pictures of German atrocities 
in Belgium even did harm; for they presented too 
clearly the ruthlessness of Germany in destroying 
small countries which presumed to stand in her path: 



154 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

the Cretan townsfolk were not for exposing their 
country incautiously to that risk. 

In the end we decided to write and issue our own 
propaganda. It was a considerable task, but there 
were two Greek-speaking English officers now 
associated with me in Crete, formerly members like 
myself of the British Archaeological School in Athens, 
free to travel continuously in the eastern and western 
halves of Crete while I was in general tied to our base 
at Suda; where however before long the West Cretan 
officer was soon required permanently to help me. 
Between us we turned out a number of short and 
breezy pamphlets adapted to the local taste. My own 
chief contribution was a reply to a solemn German 
treatise which argued that a German victory in the 
war was "an historical necessity," and contained 
enough catch-words and impressive phrases to be 
dangerous: the Greek is quick to appropriate such and 
to reproduce them as his own. The reply was a brief 
skit, in the form of a Platonic dialogue between a 
German professor and a humorous Cretan scamp 
aboard a steamship bound for Candia. The professor, 
who talks and mispronounces the stilted language of 
a leading article, turns out to have had as his pupil the 
author of the said German treatise. The Cretan, an 
ex-schoolmaster who now keeps a cook-shop which 
makes a speciality of snails, makes an effort to revert 
to the pedagogic style of speech, and introduces 
himself in such high-flown terms, to match those of 
the professor, that the latter mistakes him for a 
scientific specialist in conchology. In the conversation 
which ensues the Cretan makes fun of the German 
professor and his country, broken only by one tirade 



THE REVOLUTION 155 

in the vernacular, some of which is beyond the 
professor's comprehension. Finally he proposes to 
debate seriously the meaning of "historical necessity"; 
gets the professor to admit that necessity means only 
the relation of cause and effect, by which is governed 
the evolution of the whole natural world, snails as 
well as men; demonstrates that historical necessity is 
only that branch of natural necessity which governs 
the development of nations and men, in reference to 
whom therefore the two terms are interchangeable; 
and then asks the professor what is the first and 
greatest necessity of men. The professor pronounces 
for systematic education and the assimilation of 
German culture. The Cretan apologises for having 
expressed his question badly, and suggests that even 
the children being educated in German schools need 
food first; and food, not to mention certain other 
supplies, is the first necessity of their soldiers in the 
field. "Where," he asks, "will you get your supplies 
for your blockaded country?" "We had made large 
provision before the war," replies the German. "A 
damning enough fact," retorts the Cretan; "but even 
they will not last for ever. We have experienced a 
short blockade in Greece and Crete lately, and know 
what it means." "Our commercial submarines will 
bring supplies from America," says the German; 
"haven't you read in the papers about those two?" 
"Bah!" retorts the Cretan, "we had two smuggling 
caiques which ran the blockade here; but they didn't 
save many of us from feeling hungry. Sea-power 
must starve you out too in the end. Sea-power 
always wins. It is a natural necessity." "Excuse 
me," says the German, breaking off the conversation 



156 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

and making hastily for the ship's side, "the sea affects 
my stomach." "The sea will affect every German 
stomach," replies the Cretan; "it is a natural 
necessity." 

This was the lighter side of our propaganda work; 
but the anonymous and flippant pamphlet served our 
purposes, I suspect, no less well than the open and 
serious measures which we threatened or took against 
newspapers subsidised by the enemy. There were two 
such in Canea and one in Candia whose influence was 
considerable. The Canea papers got into trouble 
with us first. I have before me a couple of pages, 
torn from the press-copy-book of the Austrian Consul 
at Canea, which I preserved as a memento. Writing 
on 1 8th May 191 6 from Laccus, the mountain village 
where he and his German colleague had fled for 
refuge, he set forth for the edification of his Excellency 
the Minister of the Exterior, Stephan Baron Burian, 
the details of a serious menace to the liberty of the 
press. He had the story quite right — so right that 
the "unimpeachable source" from which he professed 
to have learnt it could have been none other than the 
Prefect of Canea, with whom the British Vice-Consul 
and I had had our interview on this matter. 

We called on him one evening to represent that 
two newspapers of Canea, the Nea Erevna and the 
Himerisia, were overstepping the bounds of legitimate 
criticism and publishing libellous and defamatory 
articles about Great Britain in general and the portion 
of the British fleet at Suda in particular. We hoped 
that the Prefect would use his friendly influence with 
the editors of the two papers to prevent the recurrence 
of such libels, which we could not permit to continue. 



THE REVOLUTION 157 

Now the Prefect was not only a Germanophile rogue 
but a lawyer to boot. He replied therefore that the 
niceties of defamation, libel, and slander furnished 
matter for much legal discussion, and that he would 
be loth to give an opinion off-hand whether the 
passages of which we complained constituted a libel in 
the legal sense. Thereupon I assured him that we 
had not come to consult him in his professional 
capacity, and that we were not contemplating any 
action in the Greek courts. The S.N.O. at Suda, 
though no lawyer, would take upon himself the 
responsibility of deciding whether any given criticism 
amounted to defamation, and would regretfully arrest 
the editors concerned and close their premises. To 
avoid so untoward an incident, it would be well if the 
Prefect, as a friend of both parties, would advise the 
editors to abstain from any comment which might even 
be construed as a libel by anyone not versed in the law. 
I am sure this was very polite and did not merit 
the censure which the German Consul (for I saw his 
despatch too subsequently) passed on my conduct. I 
was mentioned in his despatches for "brutal direct- 
ness." He never liked me. I suspect that he really 
did set a price on my head. However both he and 
his Austrian colleague agreed that the editors must 
take the advice offered to them, and the Austrian 
warned his Excellency the Minister of the Exterior 
that even "the hitherto so highly successful publica- 
tion of impartial foreign articles" (he himself con- 
tributed these) "must in the future be rigorously 
reduced or wholly abandoned." I am glad that they 
did not call that bluff, for our orders were to arrest 
no one ashore. 



158 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

The aggrieved editors missed a fine opportunity of 
retaliation a few weeks later, and sank in my estima- 
tion. One evening in June I was in Canea, and a 
number of other officers from Suda were also there. 
Soon after five the editor of the one friendly paper of 
the place found me in the square, and asked to have 
a word with me. He had received a telegram from 
Athens saying that the die was cast, and Greece had 
openly joined the Central Powers and was at war 
with England and France. What was he to do about 
publishing the news? Now I knew of course that the 
attitude of the Greek army in the Salonica area had 
been threatening for some time past, and the news 
might be true. But for the moment all that mattered 
was to get our officers out of Canea before the news 
became public. Shore-leave at this time expired at 
7.30 — our padre and an officer from another ship had 
reported being fired at on two occasions, and shore- 
going was limited to certain roads and hours — and the 
very latest at which any officer could leave Canea 
would be seven o'clock. I should naturally warn any 
whom I could find to return to Suda at once, but I 
could reckon the place clear by seven and make a 
move then myself. Accordingly I asked the editor 
to defer his next edition containing the news, no 
matter whether accurate or no, until just after seven, 
which he agreed to do. 

I then took a stroll round the town and found 
some officers at various cafes and asked them to go 
back to Suda; and I was passing again through the 
square when one of the hostile editors approached me. 
He was particularly ingratiating and wanted my 
advice. He had in fact received the same telegram 



THE REVOLUTION 159 

and was presumably a little anxious concerning the 
fate of himself and his journal if he should publish 
the news and it should subsequently prove inaccurate. 
If only he could get corroboration of it from me, he 
could play his stroke without fear of consequences. 
He asked me what he was to do. I told him I was 
incredulous of the truth of his information: had war 
broken out, I should have known by wireless far 
sooner than he by cable. But obviously there would 
be nothing defamatory of us in publishing such a 
telegram, though he might be defaming the good 
sense of the Greek government. It was not for me 
to advise him; it was purely a journalistic question 
whether he could sell enough of an edition containing 
the news before his or any other newspaper had to 
publish an official denial. He went away perplexed, 
and missed his chance. He must have been furious 
when shortly after half-past six the bugles began to 
sound in various parts of the town, and the soldiers 
about the place were mustered at various centres and 
marched through the streets with fixed bayonets to 
concentrate at headquarters. The Greek always 
overdoes things : I could not see the point of the 
fixed bayonets, or rather I could see it but certainly 
did not expect that any British officers about would 
feel it. 

Anyhow I intended to watch developments till 
seven. So I took a seat outside the main cafe in the 
square and ordered a large ice as a hint to the military 
that they too should keep cool. My neighbours at the 
surrounding tables moved away, I observed, and left 
me in splendid isolation : they looked for a fracas, it 
seemed. If so, they were disappointed. I had finished 



160 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

my ice, and it wanted only a few minutes to seven, 
when a young Frenchman who lived in the place came 
up to me in a state of hardly suppressed excitement. 
Didn't I know what was up? War had broken out 
between Greece and the Entente. As soon as he 
heard, he had got out his car and had been driving 
round the town to warn any officers he might see. He 
believed I was the only one left. His car was now at 
my service. "What about you?" I asked. "Quite 
safe," he replied. He and his family, old residents 
in the place, knew far too many people to be in any 
immediate danger. If the situation began to look 
worse, they would get warning in plenty of time to 
pack off to Suda. Meantime he proposed to show 
me the pace of his car and his skill in handling her 
through the narrow and ill-kept streets of Canea and 
down to Suda, which indeed he did. 

But war had not broken out, you may say. How 
did all the commotion arise? The answer is an 
interesting item of secret history which shows on what 
a thread the fortunes of Greece have hung. The 
story was told me by a Greek colonel, since dead, who 
was a central figure in it. The Minister of War in 
Athens, with the approval, possibly of the King or 
Queen, possibly of one or two of his colleagues, but 
not with the knowledge and consent of the whole 
government, decided to cast in the lot of Greece with 
that of the Central Powers. He telegraphed orders 
to Greek headquarters in the Salonica area to open 
fire on the British and French lines and shipping 
without more ado. These orders upset the general in 
command, and he called a conclave of a few senior 
officers, among whom was my informant. When his 



THE REVOLUTION 161 

turn came to speak, he pressed the point that a 
declaration of war by the Government should have 
preceded the War Minister's order to commence 
hostilities. That order, he maintained, was not valid 
and binding until such declaration had been made. 
His view was accepted, and it was decided to make 
immediate preparations for an attack, but to await the 
formal declaration of war, which as all the world 
knows was never made. 

Meantime the Minister of War, confident that his 
orders must have already involved Greece, com- 
municated the news that war had broken out to some 
journalists in Athens and to certain military head- 
quarters in Crete and doubtless elsewhere. What 
happened when he learnt that his orders had not been 
obeyed at Salonica and his communications had been 
premature, I cannot say, save only that the colonel, 
my informant, was shortly afterwards relieved of his 
post. 

My next skirmish with one of the hostile editors 
arose out of a pure accident. One of my duties in 
boarding any ship arriving from Piraeus was to have 
the bundles of Athens newspapers overhauled, to see 
if any contraband or private correspondence was 
hidden in them. One evening I had cleared for dis- 
charge a quantity of these bundles stacked on deck, 
and had afterwards been occupied for a couple of 
hours perhaps with the inspection of passports, mani- 
fests, and such-like, when my attention was called to 
another lot of newspapers which had been stowed in 
one of the holds. I told one of the marines to look 
them through as quickly as possible, and passed them 
too for discharge. Next day there appeared in one of 



162 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

the two hostile papers of Canea a violent attack upon 
me for clearing the Venizelist papers at once and hold- 
ing up the Government papers until it was too late to 
distribute and sell them in Canea that night. The 
immemorial rights of the press were being trodden 
ruthlessly in the mire, and the British Navy which 
enjoyed the hospitality of the magnificent harbour of 
Suda was abusing the neighbourly accommodation of 
a neutral country by a shameless interference in its 
domestic politics; and so on. 

A storm in a teacup indeed, all because a bundle 
or two of papers had been delayed in transit; but the 
editor must be taught not to get agitated; it was too 
good a chance to miss. Besides I wanted to find out 
how much he knew about our propaganda in Crete, 
my suggestions of a revolution, or my pamphlet 
touching the German professor, which was at the 
time being printed in the next street. 

To this end I called on him in person. I opened 
with quite gentle remonstrance. I was ready of 
course to accept his word that it was the Venizelist 
papers which had been delivered in good time and 
the Government papers which had been delayed: but 
how did that concern me? Greek politics naturally 
absorbed persons like himself, but we had a big war 
on hand, and must be pardoned if we attached less 
importance to their party squabbles. What had 
happened was actually this — and I narrated the 
trifling incident. By a mere chance, on one occasion 
only, a quantity of newspapers had been delayed a 
couple of hours. If I really objected to papers of any 
given political complexion entering Crete, should I 
not get waste paper declared contraband and save 



THE REVOLUTION 163 

myself all the trouble of searching those bundles of 
newspapers each time a ship arrived? 

He began to see that he had made an error, and 
wished to apologise. I replied that unfortunately his 
attack upon me had been public, and the apology 
therefore should be public likewise. But the personal 
aspect of the affair was not the worst part of it, I 
continued. He had charged the British nation, as 
represented by the naval squadron at Suda, with 
trampling on the liberty of the press and interfering 
in domestic politics. Those charges he must either 
justify or withdraw — publicly likewise. He now 
began trying to justify them. The Athens papers, he 
said, were full of protests against British interference 
in the domestic politics of Greece. I pointed out to 
him that the statements of newspapers were not 
evidence. Did he maintain, I asked, that the news- 
papers of Athens and elsewhere always told the truth, 
and that his was the only one which published lies? 
He must furnish evidence, tangible evidence, that the 
British were interfering in any way with the political 
situation in Crete, or else publicly retract and 
apologise. 

For a journalist he was badly up in current affairs. 
He could produce no evidence. He wrote an apology 
while I waited. I inserted a few amendments to 
stiffen it, and then I revealed to him the full measure 
of his punishment. The apology was to appear not 
only in his own paper but in all the papers of Canea. 
He demurred to one, — the sole Anglophile paper: he 
was not sure, he said, that the editor of it would 
accept a letter from him. I told him that I was sure 
the editor would take it at special advertisement rates, 



164 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

and that I would go round at once and reserve space 
for it on the front page. That settled him, and an 
ample retractation appeared next day in all the local 
papers, headed "For the sake of truth." It was a 
great compliment to the secrecy of our propaganda. 

The journalism of Canea was thus temporarily 
quieted, but the leading enemy newspaper of Candia 
still required attention, the more so because, if a 
general election was our immediate destiny, Candia 
was the one place where the success of a Venizelist 
candidate was not assured. But no occasion offered 
until, not a general election, but the revolution, was 
close at hand. This however did not make a knock- 
out for the Candia paper any less desirable, and at the 
right moment the editor thereof delivered himself 
into our hands. 

Early in September I received one day a confi- 
dential message that a gentleman from Candia desired 
urgently to see me in Canea. There were reasons 
why he wished the interview to be secret and could 
not himself come to me at Suda. He appointed a 
rather disreputable hotel in a back-street where he 
would await me at any hour I might name. The 
hotel indicated did not commend itself to me. If 
the gentleman from Candia was, as I inclined to think, 
an emissary from our insurgent party at Candia, I 
should excite unnecessary comment by meeting him 
there; on the other hand it might be a trap for me, — 
the Mohammedans of Canea had been making threats 
of violence since the recent arrest of the Sourourzade, 
— and a back-street hotel would favour such a project. 
So I told the messenger that as it happened I was 
just on the point of starting for Canea, and would see 



THE REVOLUTION 165 

the gentleman in an hour's time at the chief hotel, 
where my presence would excite no remark. I 
reckoned that if his business was genuine and urgent, 
he would come; but if any trap was being laid, he 
would not have time to alter the arrangements. 

I followed close on the heels of the messenger, 
and my man duly presented himself at the hour 
named. It was neither a trap nor a message from the 
revolutionaries of Candia. He introduced himself as 
a confidential representative of Mr. Eleutheriadis of 
Candia, the editor of the Palingenesia — so, if I 
remember rightly, his paper was named — that is 
"Regeneration." Tortuously he approached his sub- 
ject. Mr. Eleutheriadis, it seemed, desired himself 
to become regenerate in the political sense, — in other 
words to rat. But he could not afford the luxury. The 
circulation of his influential paper would inevitably fall 
off, at least for a time. Indeed hitherto, like so many 
other papers, it could hardly be said to have thrived 
on the revenue from subscribers alone. The Germans 
had recognised the value of Mr. Eleutheriadis's sup- 
port: the British, he hoped, if they approved of the 
paper in a form in which it might even become their 
official organ, would show their appreciation with no 
less liberality. 

We came to figures after a bit. The Germans, he 
said, had found 10,000 francs at the outset for new 
plant in the printing-office ; since then they had 
paid a subsidy of 1000 francs a month, and their 
Legation in Athens had provided paper gratis. Mr. 
Eleutheriadis, having changed his views or being 
minded to change them, placed himself at our disposal. 
Any offer we might make to him should take into 



166 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

account the rapidity with which the change of tone in 
his leading articles was to be effected, and the ultimate 
orientation of political views which we desired. To 
support the British only would obviously require a 
less pronounced volte-face than to support the whole 
Entente, and that in turn would be less serious and 
less prejudicial to the paper's circulation than to 
support the Entente plus Venizelos. I was unable to 
get a quotation for these several orientations; so I 
asked him to give me a day or two to think over the 
suggestion, and, as there was no boat for Candia for 
three days, he said he would stay in Canea and await 
my reply. 

But before three days had passed, Mr. Eleutheriadis 
received his answer. I sent a note of the conversa- 
tion to our Intelligence Officer in East Crete, who 
happened to have just arrived, with the officer com- 
manding our trawlers, off Candia. They sent for 
Mr. Eleutheriadis to come aboard. His offer was 
discussed with him, and with his own mouth he con- 
firmed all the details. He was then informed that 
the conversation would be continued at Suda. His 
enforced absence prevented the issue of his paper next 
day, and his premises were closed; but the rival 
paper was advised to prepare for an increased circula- 
tion, and the newspaper-loving public of Candia were 
in no way defrauded or disappointed; for a narrative 
signed by a British officer had not previously appeared 
in any paper, and the article written bv our Intelli- 
gence Officer on the ratting of Eleutheriadis caused a 
definite sensation. This was not least among the 
Royalist party and their leaders, who had been in 
close touch with the editor. Some, who had them- 



THE REVOLUTION 167 

selves been in receipt of German pay, were fearful of 
further revelations; others, who had not, felt resent- 
ment and chagrin at the thought of their missed 
opportunities, and a malicious pleasure in the down- 
fall of their more business-like colleague; all alike 
disavowed any real intimacy with Eleutheriadis and 
expressed reprobation of his conduct. But it was all 
a trifle unsettling for a political party on the eve of 
a revolution. 

As for Eleutheriadis, we sent him to Malta for 
internment, charged on his own confession with 
having acted as a paid enemy agent. He appeared to 
be genuinely surprised by our attitude towards him, 
and quite unconscious of any moral obliquity attach- 
ing to his proposed conversion. He was well out of 
the way. He had, I think, smelt a rat, and decided 
to follow its example by leaving the sinking Royalist 
ship. For by this time history was in the making, 
and it needed no great flair to detect that some serious 
movement was imminent. 

PART III.— THE MEETING OF THE STREAMS 

In the course of August, as the result of prop- 
aganda stimulating the natural sentiments of the 
population particularly in the mountain-villages, I had 
already been able to report that "popular dissatisfac- 
tion with the Greek Government's policy of non- 
intervention is aggravated by the Bulgarian occupation 
of Greek territory and by the contrast between that 
neutral policy and the Roumanian declaration of war; 
symptoms of active unrest have been noted." That 
sounds so much less crude than to say "our revolu- 



168 TALES OF J5GEAN INTRIGUE 

tionary propaganda is spreading nicely, and the idea of 
an iEgean Republic, free to join the Allies, rooting 
well." 

But hardly had I so reported when other symp- 
toms, of some unknown movement, also appeared. 
It came to my knowledge that two or three Venizelist 
deputies or ex-deputies had left Crete with every 
precaution of secrecy, bound for Athens. Now a 
Greek deputy does not commonly hide his light 
under a bushel either when he is travelling or at any 
time. He claims precedence in presenting his pass- 
port, and preferential treatment in general befitting 
his dignity. A deputy afflicted with a sudden attack 
of modesty wants watching. I made some inquiries 
as to whether there was anything contagious in these 
gentlemen's distemper, and within two days had a list 
of over thirty prominent politicians in the western 
half of Crete alone, and a few in the eastern half, to 
whom the mysterious malady had spread. There was 
a veritable epidemic of modesty. All these persons 
had been called away on business to Athens, and so 
little desired to court publicity that they had left or 
were leaving, as far as possible, singly, by different 
routes, and actually incognito. In case they should 
chance to meet for any purpose in Athens, I com- 
municated their names to our Legation. 

As a quick piece of intelligence work I considered 
this good, and I was disappointed at receiving no 
response from Athens. Whether it was that the 
Legation did not know at this stage the purpose of 
that Venizelist gathering, or, as I think more likely, 
treated the matter as a diplomatic secret until the 
Foreign Office could make up its mind how to steer 



THE REVOLUTION 169 

or on what current to drift, I cannot say; but I am 
fairly sure that the Cretan politicians who took part in 
that conference returned home with the feeling that 
British sympathy with their project was lukewarm or 
even chilly. I had to force the confidence of one or 
two whom I knew well, before I could get at the true 
reason of their trip. They assured me first that they 
had been anxious about the personal safety of Venize- 
los in Athens, and had gone to form a bodyguard for 
him; but I pointed out to them that their political 
leadership in their constituencies was far too valuable 
to justify their absence or the risk to their lives in 
what was after all only police-work, and that in point 
of fact many of their colleagues were too fat to be 
very efficient watch-dogs. I added too that I might 
be able to be of some service if I knew precisely what 
was going on, and they could count in any case on 
my sympathy and my discretion. Then it came out. 
Venizelos too was planning a revolution. Crete 
would start the game by declaring a provisional gov- 
ernment. Samos, Chios, Mytilene, and perhaps other 
islands would join in. Salonica would become the tem- 
porary capital. 

Good-bye then to the iEgean Republic; that 
dream must vanish; our scheme of revolution must 
be merged in that of Venizelos; our stream must 
be diverted into the same channel, and its volume go 
to turn the same mill. The change of direction would 
not affect the force of our influx from the mountains; 
that would turn one mill-wheel now with the same 
energy as another, careless to what exact use the 
resulting power was put. One or two of the hill- 
chieftains indeed observed the altered trend of affairs 



170 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

so little, that they gave me the credit of having 
induced Venizelos to join and lead a movement 
initiated by us. I did not disclaim the attribution; 
any personal prestige might be an asset when the time 
for action should come. And that time must be 
nearer now that Venizelos was with us, or rather we 
with him. Once the two streams had met in one, the 
doubled volume of their waters must flow with 
increased velocity, or else, if we should try to dam 
them till the mill was ready to work (we realised this 
later), their banks must be builded strong and high if 
they were not to burst their confines and overflow, 
wasted and laying waste. 

For a week or more we now waited, daily expect- 
ing instructions from the Legation or the Vice- 
Admiral, and receiving none. The Consul indeed 
received an extremely confidential hint that there was 
a whisper that Venizelos himself might possibly pay 
a visit to Crete. I suppose anyone who considered 
the matter would have offered ten to one on that 
without the hint. Venizelos obviously could not stay 
in Athens; he might of course go straight to Salonica; 
but it would be unlike him to leave the Cretans to 
run a revolution in his interest and not put in an 
appearance. The number of deputies however who 
knew definitely that he would come was, I think, small; 
that intention had not been divulged to the whole con- 
ference; none of them had as yet mentioned it to me, 
and I naturally kept the Legation's hint secret. 

At last, on ioth September, the Venizelist organis- 
ing committee in Canea made a move which gave us 
hope of obtaining some guidance from our Legation. 
Mr. Moazzo, a leading resident of Canea and for- 



THE REVOLUTION 171 

merly a British Vice-Consul, came on board, as the 
representative of the Venizelist leaders, to ask the 
Senior Naval Officer officially what would be his atti- 
tude in the event of a revolution breaking out in the 
island. The S.N.O. could not but reply that he had 
no instructions to be other than neutral, and that con- 
sequently the Suda arsenal enclosure, which was lent to 
us, as well as British ships, must be regarded as sanc- 
tuary for unarmed refugees of either party. I cor- 
rected any false inference that might have been drawn 
by the Venizelists from this statement by assuring them 
afterwards unofficially that we had no instructions 
to be neutral either. It was decided however that 
the British Consul should go over to Athens next day 
on our behalf, and one or two of Mr. Moazzo's 
friends at the same time, with the purpose of inducing 
Venizelos and our Legation to provide some pro- 
gramme of work. All that came of the expedition 
however was that the Consul was ordered by the 
Legation to stay on in Athens so as to avoid any 
suspicion of complicity in the coming revolution. 
I should have liked to send a gross of foot-warmers 
to the Foreign Office with my compliments : as it was, 
we saw that we must discount any chance of in- 
structions arriving until too late. Carry on then, 
carry on. 

The emissaries to Venizelos were hardly more 
successful than our Consul. They came back again, 
it is true, but brought no substantial information. 
Their committee resumed its sittings at Canea. Its 
members were mostly deputies, ex-deputies, or 
aspirant-deputies, who wore the black coat of 
respectability and took their exercise slowly between 



172 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

cafes. Whatever committee was formed in their 
neighbourhood, they were obviously the men to sit 
upon it. They were thoroughly good sitters, crowded 
now into the one nest, and without a fertile egg 
under them to hatch, — or, if there were, it would get 
broken in the contest for hatching it, — but they were 
just as happy with wind-eggs, and it mattered less if 
these were broken. When this happened, and the nest 
got messy and uncomfortable, in the absence of any 
cock-of-the-walk they started a crowing match among 
themselves, and finally asked Venizelos to select the 
best crower as deputy-cock, — or cock deputy. 

I dare say the committee was really no more futile 
a body than the majority of committees, and merely 
a trifle more quarrelsome for the reason that it was 
Greek, and it appears to be an historical necessity 
that the leaders of Greek movements shall quarrel 
among themselves which shall be greatest. But there 
were two or three of the members who besides 
talking in the committee-room worked outside. One 
of them, Dr. George Maris, was largely absent at 
Candia where he was to take command in this "his 
first revolution," so they told me, though he had 
some experience as a leader of irregulars in the 
Balkan Wars. Others, residents of Canea, did some 
excellent quiet work in winning over junior officers 
and men of the local troops to the Venizelist cause. 
They worked best singly; in committee, they sank 
to the level of the least intelligent. The larger 
questions of general strategy, supplies, and communi- 
cations appeared to be crowded out by the discus- 
sion of comparatively petty details. These questions 
needed to be settled in consultation with the chieftains 



THE REVOLUTION 173 

who would actually lead the insurgents in the field. 
I decided to get into direct touch with these chieftains, 
and to short-circuit the committee. 

The highlands of West Crete are divided up into 
a number of chieftaincies, based ultimately on the 
exigencies of cattle-lifting and insurrection. The 
chieftainship of a given village or area rests on no 
claim of heredity or wealth. It passes from the best 
man deceased to the best man living; and, if there 
is any doubt about the succession, it is determined, 
I suppose, like many other controversies in Crete, on 
the principle of the survival of the fittest in the use 
of the rifle. These men compare with the town-bred 
politicians as the clean open expanse of their mountains 
with the squalor of tortuous streets. Their code is 
rough and hard, but it is binding and has its own 
chivalry. Above the local chieftains is the chieftain- 
in-chief to whom all owe allegiance in time of insur- 
rection. There are, it is true, a few isolated clans 
within the borders of the grand chieftaincy, such as the 
Sphakiotes (their leaders had been bought early in the 
war by the Germans), who stand aloof; but the sway 
of the supreme chieftain over the mountain-folk of 
West Crete is none the less a vast power. 

I had already met this man in Canea, "Capetan" 
— such is the courtesy-title — Capetan Iannis Kalligeris. 
The local politicians spoke of him then and afterwards 
with a patronising smile as of a simple illiterate peas- 
' ant who possessed withal some gifts of leadership of 
which they would gladly avail themselves. Little they 
understood that he was worth the lot of them and 
their progeny to the third generation. Next to 
Venizelos he was the biggest man in Crete, and 



174 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

without him Venizelos himself could hardly have made 
history. 

Illiterate, yes; but he took with him a trusty 
aide-de-camp who could read and write, and he himself 
carried a rubber stamp, a memento of the Balkan 
Wars, whereon he was described as Chieftain of the 
Cretans in Epirus, and this served as a seal for the 
messages he dictated. Simple too, and with the 
truest simplicity; when, after the revolution, in 
company with some other of the ship's officers I paid 
him a visit in his mountain home, he sent mules and 
an escort to bring us on our way, and received us on 
our arrival with a feu-de-joie fired with live cartridges 
in the streets of the village and from the windows 
of the cottages; but, when we sat down to table, his 
wife remained cooking and dishing up in the next room, 
and he himself waited on the company, carrying in 
with his own hands first a vast tray of assorted dry 
fruits and cheese, next a platter of boiled eggs calcu- 
lated at four a-piece, and finally one boiled chicken 
each, and would not sit down, save to drink imper- 
turbably our healths and many other toasts in raw 
distilled spirits, until the edge of our hunger should 
be less keen. His home was but a good-sized cottage; 
the door opened off his now depleted poultry-yard into 
a living-room with a plain earthen floor and furnished 
only with a rough table, a settle against one wall, 
sundry common chairs, and some large chests to hold 
household-goods; a small kitchen opened off it, and 
there were a couple of bedrooms above, reached by 
what was more ladder than staircase from the living- 
room. True, it was temporary accommodation; his 
own cottage had been burnt down accidentally while 



THE REVOLUTION 175 

he was away leading the revolution, and when the news 
was brought to him, he asked no details but sent back 
word that he was busy. When he was free again, he 
had found this new abode. But he was quite satisfied 
with it till his own should be rebuilt. Yet this was 
the man whose word was law through the highlands of 
West Crete. Given such men, need the iEgean Re- 
public have been only a dream? 

At this moment however the reality was an 
approaching revolution, and I wanted to see Capetan 
Iannis about it. I sent him a message asking if he 
could meet me soon in the neighbourhood of Suda. 
He appointed ten o'clock next morning, 15th Septem- 
ber, at the cafe on the Retimo road where I had con- 
ducted my earlier propaganda. The S.N.O. went with 
me, notwithstanding his official statement that we had 
no instructions to be other than neutral. We made a 
slight detour on the hill-side above the road, as if tak- 
ing a morning stroll only, so that our direction on 
leaving Suda village should not be remarked, and 
descended to the road again when out of sight. The 
cafe itself, situated by the roadside, seemed a some- 
what public place for our conference, but we meant at 
least to reach it without attracting notice. We need 
not really have troubled. Capetan Iannis had had his 
scouts out from early morning, and the road was 
quietly picketed. No person not wanted would in- 
trude. Capetan Iannis with two of his most trusted 
chieftains was awaiting us, and a picturesque group 
they formed in all the bravery of Cretan dress and 
accoutrements under the big plane-tree beside the rivu- 
let, with their mules tied up against the cafe wall in the 
background. 



176 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

Our bows and salutes exchanged — these stalwart 
highlanders lack nothing in courtesy and dignity — and 
glasses of raw spirits set before us, we came to 
business. No words were wasted. We all wanted 
a revolution: we had met to discuss plans and appor- 
tion responsibilities. Capetan Iannis would command 
on land in the Canea area, with which we were first 
concerned, finding all the necessary troops and supplies, 
and arranging for internal communications by couriers 
for our own use, and for parties standing by to cut 
the inland wires if the moment came for isolating the 
town. We should control the sea, preventing any re- 
inforcements reaching the Royalists in that way, and 
maintain external communications, as with Venizelos 
in Athens, or long-distance communications in the 
island, as between Canea or Suda and Candia. The 
general plan of action which commended itself to both 
parties was that Capetan Iannis should occupy all 
villages round Canea and picket all roads and paths, 
investing the place completely on the land side, while 
we watched the sea, until Venizelos himself should 
arrive or an order for the entry of Canea be received. 
Retimo and Candia were to be handled in the same 
way, except that the entry into those towns would be 
delayed until Canea was in our hands; the moral effect 
of our success there should react quickly on the situa- 
tion farther east. Capetan Iannis was not personally 
responsible for operations in those areas, but his advice 
was certain to be accepted. 

I asked Capetan Iannis how many men he would 
have at his disposal for investing Canea. His answer 
quietly and simply given was characteristic of the man : 
"If Capetan Iannis takes his gun and comes down 



THE REVOLUTION 17? 

from the hills, five thousand men follow him." It 
was no boast, just a plain statement of fact. For 
Candia another four or five thousand would be avail- 
able; for Retimo two thousand; for various other 
small ports or large inland villages detachments 
amounting in all to two or three thousand; total, as 
near as might be, fifteen thousand. They would bring 
their own rifles and ammunition, and food supplies 
(probably in fact bread and olives) sufficient for three 
days. 

As for the capture of Canea, the most uncertain 
factor in the resistance which might be offered was the 
attitude of the battalion of Greek troops quartered 
there — about a thousand strong and equipped with six 
machine-guns. A mutiny was obviously desirable, and 
should be timed to precede immediately or to coincide 
with the insurgents' advance from their villages upon 
the town. As far as we knew, the Venizelist prop- 
aganda among the soldiers was going well. But you 
cannot hope for statistics in such a matter, and there 
is a high and constant risk that some soldier will reveal 
to his commanding officer the overtures that are being 
made. It was bound to remain the most uncertain 
factor which Capetan Iannis' generalship must face. 

Then some mention was made of another danger- 
ous factor in the situation, — the Mohammedan popula- 
tion of Canea. Capetan Iannis was at once ablaze. 
His manner had been hitherto so quiet and self- 
restrained that I had not suspected the fires hidden 
below. Now the tava overflowed. The Cretan code 
is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, or prefer- 
ably two. The Mohammedans were to him as the 
Amalekites. He mimicked in bitter irony the mealy- 



178 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

mouthed speech of the "beys," as the well-to-do 
Mohammedans of Crete call themselves, and their 
feigned devotion to "our beloved King Tino" ; it was 
strange to see how his own mountain dialect fell from 
him, and he spoke in mimicry the speech of educated 
men; and then from ridicule he passed to full-blooded 
cursing. His own brother, a priest, had been hanged 
by the Turks in Canea some twenty years before. 
The day of vengeance was at hand, and he exulted in 
it. The outburst opened my eyes to a danger worse 
than any Mohammedan resistance, — the danger of 
excesses by our own allies. Fighting we expected; 
reprisals on a Cretan scale for Turkish atrocities of 
twenty years ago were no part of our programme. 
Nor did it quiet my anxiety on this score when a day 
or two later I saw a list of the proscribed, containing 
the names of three military officers, the editors of the 
two Royalist papers, several politicians, and a number 
of influential Mohammedans. 

I had learnt more of Crete in that one wayside 
conference than in all my comings and goings in Canea. 
The population of Greek towns degenerates fast; but 
here in the mountain fastnesses was a virile race, — 
material not the less fine because inflammable. Only 
no more fuel was now needed: we were playing with 
fire, and were more like to need an extinguisher. I 
could but hope that the Candia contingent was 
less volcanic. George Maris, their leader, a doctor 
and a deputy, whatever his Cretan instincts might be, 
should have political perception enough to see at least 
the inexpediency of wholesale massacre. Moreover 
the Royalist party there had undoubtedly been disor- 
ganised by the arrest of Eleutheriadis and the ensuing 



THE REVOLUTION 179 

revelations; and there were no troops there to consti- 
tute an unknown factor. Once Canea was in our 
hands, Candia should be an easier prey. As for 
Retimo, I hardly doubted that it would capitulate 
without trouble to a force of two thousand insurgents. 

The days passed, and still no instructions came 
from the Legation or any other authority. But I did 
not want any now; we were too deeply committed. 
We learnt afterwards that the Legation believed that 
the Foreign Office would acquaint us through the Ad- 
miralty with the policy to be pursued. But what the 
official policy, if any, may have been, I never heard. 
On 2 ist September indeed, when the movement was 
well under way, the Admiralty wired to us : "Athens 
reports that 3000 Cretans with rifles, 6 machine-guns, 
and 1,000,000 rounds ammunition may present them- 
selves. French Government is prepared to accept them 
for service under Sarrail" ; and, as an afterthought, a 
supplementary message ordered us to give to the 
French any necessary help in transporting these volun- 
teers to Salonica. The message appeared both ill- 
informed and premature. By this time not 3000, but 
15,000 Cretans had presented themselves with rifles, 
and not for service at Salonica, but nearer home; the 
six machine-guns happened unfortunately to be the 
property of our opponents; and some part of the 
million rounds might be expended at any moment. 
But that message was all the help anyone at home 
gave us. No one can accuse the Foreign Office of 
precipitating that revolution. 

Is it not time that that necessary national institu- 
tion should recruit its personnel among other than the 
butterflies, bright or dull, that hover gracefully enough 



180 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

maybe, while young, on ambassadorial terraces, but, 
by some inverted parody of nature, are doomed to 
pass ere middle life into pupae sealed within silken 
cocoons, whence the longer-lived emerge as caterpil- 
lars, tenacious and woolly, crawling from branch to 
branch of diplomatic life, till one veteran perchance 
reaches at random the top of the tree? Quousque tan- 
dem, old caterpillar, abuteris patientia nostra? When 
will you learn to use as your emissaries to foreign 
climes not butterflies only, but bees who work unsleep- 
ingly, who bring their honey home, and who at need 
can sting? 

PART IV.— IN FULL FLOOD 

But from another source an urgent message reached 
us. An emissary from Venizelos told us to expect him 
on 19th September or at latest on 20th September: an 
agreed telegram of conventional greetings would sig- 
nify his actual departure from Piraeus. On the 19th, 
in expectation of the telegram, word was passed for 
the gathering of the clans, and by the early morning 
of the 20th they were in occupation of the villages 
assigned to them, and the roads from Canea were 
picketed. 

In the course of the day news reached us of a 
premature outbreak at Vamos, a small inland town 
some fifteen or twenty miles from Suda, and served 
by the main road to Retimo. The place was already 
in the insurgents' hands, and the excitement caused 
by the event was certainly conducive to an outbreak 
round Canea too. The insurgents at Vamos had not 
cut the wires to Canea, so that the military and civil 
authorities there were now alive to their danger, and a 



THE REVOLUTION 181 

report came in that emplacements were being prepared 
for the six machine-guns to command the main 
approaches to the town. A telegram was sent to 
Venizelos setting forth the situation, and in the hope 
that he would hasten his departure. He was angry 
about the Vamos outbreak, but merely bade us wait. 

The next day, Thursday, 21st September, there was 
a conference at the Italian Consulate in Canea about 
the protection of foreign residents. It was agreed 
that we should continue to hold the arsenal at Suda 
open as sanctuary for any unarmed refugees, foreign 
or native, and that a sloop or trawler, which was re- 
quired oft Canea in any case to watch the harbour, 
should receive on board the Consuls and their families 
or any other foreigners. 

About noon grave news reached me from the 
friendly officers of the troops in Canea. They believed 
that that evening their colonel purposed to give them 
such orders as they would be forced to disobey, and 
their disobedience would be the occasion for their 
arrest and the replacement of them by Royalist officers. 
A reply was sent back begging them not to let them- 
selves be caught in a trap of which they were fore- 
warned, and a second telegram was sent to Venizelos 
representing the gravity of the situation and urging 
the need of haste. 

That afternoon I felt that a crisis could not be long 
delayed, and induced the S.N.O. to let me wire to the 
Vice-Admiral for permission to set up a military 
censorship over all messages passing in and out of 
Crete by the Eastern Telegraph Company's cables. 
The fact that the Allies had set up a censorship at 
Piraeus a few days earlier mitigated the proposal, 



182 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

which might thus appear as an extension only of a 
principle already sanctioned; and in that sense I 
framed the request, pointing out that the same powers 
exercised by us in Crete would enable us to keep in 
touch with the movement in progress. I confess that 
the telegram revealed only half my motive; if things 
should go smoothly, it was still clearly an advantage 
to read and, if necessary, to delay the communications 
of the other side; but in the event of a crisis, if things 
should go seriously wrong, the power to cut off all 
external communication other than our own, and to 
leave the world in general and Athens in particular 
unenlightened until we had righted the situation or 
Venizelos had escaped from Athens, might prove our 
salvation. The same evening I had a confidential 
talk with the manager of the Eastern Telegraph Com- 
pany's Canea branch, on whom I knew I could rely, 
and made provisional arrangements. 

Friday, 22nd September, brought disquieting news 
from Candia. Some two thousand Venizelists, nearly 
half our force in that district, had entered the town 
but were far from having secure control of the place. 
Details were lacking, and indeed no one on the spot 
really knew what was happening. There was general 
confusion and alarm, and the streets were full of armed 
men, but no actual fighting was in progress; yet 
obviously any incident might provoke a conflict. As 
far as we could judge, George Maris must have lost 
control of half his men, who had grown impatient of 
waiting outside the town and had walked in unopposed. 
A sloop and a trawler were sent to Candia in readi- 
ness for any emergency pending the receipt of further 
information on which we could act. 



THE REVOLUTION 183 

At Canea the situation remained as grave as on the 
previous day. Our friends among the military officers 
had indeed avoided giving any excuse for their arrest, 
but the delay was clearly injurious to our hold upon 
their men. If once the feeling should begin to 
spread through the barracks that the revolutionary 
movement was in danger of failing, the fainter-hearted 
and the more indifferent would hesitate to commit 
themselves to open mutiny. The political leaders in 
the town were indeed so anxious concerning the effect 
of further waiting, that they asked us to transmit a 
telegram from them to Venizelos describing the 
situation and ending peremptorily, "We must have 
instructions." The situation was further aggravated 
in the course of the day by one of the Royalist news- 
papers. It contained a derisory article, mocking the 
insurgents as mere marauding bands who would not 
have the pluck to enter the town in face of the prepara- 
tions made to receive them, but warning people living 
on the outskirts to keep their poultry well locked up 
at night and a dog unchained. 

When copies of this paper found their way out of 
the town into the hands of the insurgents, and the 
gist of the mockery was passed from mouth to mouth, 
feeling ran high. There was one touch of truth in it 
which enhanced the ridicule. Food was running 
short among our irregulars; their three days' rations 
were nearly consumed (Venizelos had been apprised 
of this difficulty too) ; and, as it happened, the cordon 
had been drawn closer about Canea, so that the 
poultry-yards of the outskirts were no doubt a 
temptation : such visible supplies as could be furnished 
by the villages where the first concentrations had taken 



184 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

place were presumably now exhausted. I was ashore 
till late that evening exhorting to patience and trying 
to ascertain whether any more food was forthcoming. 

I returned on board about eleven o'clock, just in 
time, I remember, to get some food for myself before 
the servants turned in and the bar was closed. There 
was a signal from Athens just arrived, — Venizelos' 
reply to our telegrams of the morning. Nothing, it 
said, was to be done until he should arrive in person 
at Canea; his arrival would not be long delayed; in 
the meantime he would be responsible for the suste- 
nance of his supporters. "Financially responsible, I 
suppose," I commented to myself; "and as for noth- 
ing being done till he arrives, the business of finding 
food to buy won't leave us idle." I was getting 
intolerant of this mischievous delay, and had no notion 
what could be causing it. Later I learnt that Admiral 
Coundouriotis, who was to accompany Venizelos, 
hoped by his personal influence, deservedly great since 
the Balkan Wars, to bring away with him the whole 
or a large part of the Greek fleet. The project failed; 
Royalist sympathies among the naval officers were far 
too strong; only one or two small ships slipped their 
anchors and stole away. Yet I will not say that the 
project was not worth the risk which Venizelos took 
in Crete, though his decision might have been modified 
had he known in what volume and force the current 
of revolution was running since the streams had met. 

I passed the message, if I remember rightly, by 
telephone (we had a private line, and the risk was 
comparatively small), to our Vice-Consul in Canea for 
immediate communication to the Venizelist leaders 
there, who would have to provide the funds for dis- 



THE REVOLUTION 185 

tribution on the morrow. We clearly could not cart 
food in large quantities out of Canea, and I hoped that 
the sight of ready money in the outlying villages would 
open up private stores in which the produce of the 
harvest lay concealed. Then I considered the re- 
mainder of the telegram. The message passed to 
Canea was from Venizelos to his representatives there; 
but the Legation had added a confidential suggestion 
for us. "It would be advantageous," so they phrased 
it, if all communication by wire or shipping from Crete 
to the mainland could be prevented until Sunday 
night. 

So Venizelos proposed to leave Piraeus on Sunday 
night, two days hence, and would arrive in the course 
of Monday. "It would be advantageous" if the 
military censorship of cables, for which I had asked the 
Vice-Admiral's permission the previous afternoon, 
could operate meanwhile. In other words the V.A., 
who had not yet replied to us, had been consulting our 
Minister in Athens, who had probably replied to him, 
as he now wired to us, that "it would be advantageous" 
— provided that some one else, so I read it, would bear 
the responsibility. As for the shipping, it would 
clearly not be used for couriers as long as the cable 
was open to our opponents; the situation was changing 
too rapidly from day to day and hour to hour for 
dispatches sent by a seven- or eight-knot coasting 
steamer to have much value on delivery. Even with 
the cable in our hands, it was difficult to see how our 
opponents could really make much of their one re- 
maining resource; possibly a steamer or caique to the 
nearest island possessing a cable might be better than 
nothing. Still if the Legation thought that "it would 



186 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

be advantageous," on our own responsibility bien 
entendu, that we should institute a blockade of out- 
going craft as well as a military censorship of cables, 
why not? I was in for the devil of a row now any- 
way, if things went wrong; and if I pulled through, 
— well, secret service must not look for open recogni- 
tion; it is a game without prizes; there is no Dis- 
tinguished Lying Cross. 

I allowed myself in fact the relief of a healthy 
grumble; and it was the "Chief" {i.e. the Engineer- 
Commander) who, having sat on with me in the ward- 
room when I came aboard for a late supper, was thus 
rewarded for his kindness. He was an understanding 
man, and knew perhaps the signs of overwork at the 
end of a long hot summer. I did not intend to take 
any further action on the telegram from Athens that 
night; a signal from the Vice-Admiral containing 
definite orders on the same lines ought to be in shortly. 
The best thing at present was to get some sleep; and 
we were smoking a last cigarette before turning in, 
when just at midnight my chief agent came aboard. 

His news was brief and precise. Our friends had 
orders to close in on Canea by 4 a.m. when a number 
of our leading opponents were to be massacred and 
the Turkish quarter burnt. The crisis then had come, 
and the most strenuous part of the game must be 
played in the next four hours. The news hardly 
surprised me. I knew the insurgents' impatience of 
delay, reasonably augmented on this occasion by their 
desire to return home for the work of the vintage. 
I knew their scarcity of food. I knew the excitement 
aroused by some fool of a journalist's derision. Only 
a select few of their leaders knew definitely that 



THE REVOLUTION 187 

Venizelos was coming. Apart from that fact, there 
was every reason to finish the work, this night and to 
have food in abundance on the morrow. Presumably 
Capetan Iannis had chosen this course as the lesser of 
two evils; perhaps he had not realised that if there 
were a massacre in Canea and the news of it reached 
the Royalists in Athens, Venizelos would never leave 
Athens alive. 

I must go ashore in any case, I felt, and it might 
be well to be not too conspicuous. While I shifted 
from white uniform into khaki, I thought out the 
possibilities. There was no time to be wasted. I 
could not report to the S.N.O., as I should have been 
bound to do had he been in the ship. But he was 
sleeping ashore these nights; his wife was ill, and his 
house in Suda village was the only available refuge for 
the Consuls' wives and families, should they be driven 
to make a move in the night-time. I could not spare 
the time to go and knock him up : I must act first and 
report afterwards. 

To get in touch with Capetan Iannis and persuade 
him to cancel the orders seemed the obvious course, 
if it were practicable. His headquarters were at 
Mournies, Venizelos' native village, some six miles 
from Suda by road, — less across country, but then the 
night was dark and to miss the path would be fatal. 
I might get ashore and cover the six miles by 2 a.m., 
hardly earlier. Then, if Capetan Iannis were there, 
there might be just time for couriers across country to 
head off the contingents closing in from the villages 
upon the town. But if he were not there, if he should 
already have moved up to some advanced position and 
I had to track him for another hour or two, — the risk 



188 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

was too great, and I cast about for a better plan. The 
massacre and the burning of the Turkish quarter must 
be averted. But how? By warning Canea of its 
danger? It is a pretty point in military ethics, I grant 
you. Our allies were breaking Venizelos' direct 
orders, and were meditating unpardonable excesses, 
leaving us deliberately unwarned and yet implicated. 
Could that situation justify intelligence with the 
enemy? I did not argue the point with myself then. 
My instinct said, "No; intelligence with the enemy is 
treachery in any case, be the conduct of allies what it 
may" ; and to that view on maturer reflection I still 
hold. 

Should I then write to Capetan Iannis, and send 
couriers enough with copies of my letter to ensure the 
delivery of one wherever he might be? The writing 
of several copies would take time; the desired number 
of couriers might not be available at this hour; and^ 
most cogent point of all, the written word would not 
have the same effect as the spoken. Face to face I 
believed that I could turn Capetan Iannis from his 
purpose ; but would a note, read to him by his aide- 
de-camp, command the same attention? No; the 
personal element would be needed to turn the scale: 
he was breaking even Venizelos' written orders. And 
then, while I was being rowed ashore, the thought 
flashed into my mind, would Capetan Iannis have been 
breaking Venizelos' written orders if he had fully 
understood the motive of them? If he had realised, 
for example, that the massacre in Canea would imperil 
Venizelos' life in Athens? A really explicit telegram 
from Venizelos would save the situation even now. 
If a telegram should arrive imparting to Capetan 



THE REVOLUTION 189 

Iannis and his chieftains as much confidential knowl- 
edge as I now possessed, and confirming my judgment 
of Venizelos' motive in ordering us to stay our hand 
till his arrival, the massacre would be averted. It 
might run, "Maintain complete quiet and order till 
I come. Any disturbance or outbreak will seriously 
imperil my chance of leaving Athens. Expect me 
within three days." It would not take long to write 
and circulate copies of that message, and there was no 
chieftain but would obey orders so expressed. 

It would be a bold stroke to play, but on the 
w r hole the safest. There were certain objections to 
the thing in itself. The opening of my message "Fol- 
lowing urgent telegram from Venizelos to leaders of 
movement just received" would be a lie, though I trust 
that Plato would have classed it as a "noble lie." The 
British rule-of-thumb commandment, to which also one 
distinguished American subscribed, "thou shalt not tell 
a lie," is an admirable working principle in private 
life, and would be, I think, in public life too. Much 
of our repute among other nations rests on the belief 
that an Englishman does not lie for his own private 
advantage. But the state of war must relax this like 
other commandments in the public interest. Plato's 
study of the ethics of falsehood elucidates the govern- 
ing principle. "The veritable falsehood then," he says 
(meaning thereby moral ignorance and self-decep- 
tion), "is hateful alike to gods and to men. But 
what of the verbal falsehood? When and for whom 
does it possess such utility as not to merit hate? Does 
it not prove its utility as a weapon against our enemies, 
and as a medicine for those who are called our friends, 
to turn them from any deed to which in madness or 



190 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

any want of understanding they are setting their 
hand?" The present position of Capetan Iannis 
and his friends could hardly be more accurately 
defined: a dose of the useful medicine was needed 
quickly. 

The objection to the body of the false telegram 
might appear graver. Every word of it was true, but 
the information to be divulged was confidential, and a 
breach of confidence is, I suppose, the unpardonable 
sin in an Intelligence Officer, and liable to be visited 
with Heaven knows what penalties. And yet that short 
sentence "Expect me within three days" was worth 
adding. It would distinguish this telegram from the 
previous exhortations to unlimited waiting, and would 
give the final touch of verisimilitude to the whole mes- 
sage. It was no good spoiling the ship now for want 
of a hap'orth of tar. 

As for the possible consequences, if the leaders 
should be indiscreet or be forced to explain to their 
men the reason for turning back at the last hour, — if 
it should become generally known to the insurgents 
and, by means of an enemy informant or two in the 
villages, to the Royalists also, that Venizelos was due 
to start from Piraeus on Sunday night, — that news, if 
it were passed to Royalist circles in Athens, would 
jeopardise his liberty if not his life; but not more so 
than if there were a massacre and the news of that 
went through. In preparation for either event alike, 
success or failure, communications with Athens must 
be stopped: the censorship of cables must commence 
forthwith, and, to stop the last chance of leakage, a 
blockade of outgoing traffic by all means. 

By the time I reached my agent's house, my 



THE REVOLUTION 191 

mind was made up. I sent him to wake and fetch a 
messenger whom 1 could trust; and while he was 
gone 1 wrote two copies of the fateful telegram. The 
agent himself should take one to the Venizelist leaders 
inside Canea with an urgent request that copies should 
be sent out by every road and path to the leaders of 
the several contingents : messengers radiating thus 
from the centre must meet the converging parties 
even if they were already on the march. My other 
man should carry a copy direct to Capetan Iannis 
at Mournies, or follow him up till he found him. 
"Ianni," I said when he arrived (he was one of the 
many of that name), "this paper which you will carry 
to Capetan Iannis at Mournies or wherever else he 
may have gone is a matter of life and death. Go by 
the quickest road and let no one delay you. If a 
picket holds you up for want of a password, you may 
show them what I have written. No one must detain 
you longer than that. The paper you will hand to 
Capetan Iannis himself at all costs." "I will take a 
rifle," he said (we had one at hand), "and no one will 
detain me." Then the agent too left, with his instruc- 
tions and revolver, in a cab which he had somewhere 
found, and I returned on board. 

It was a little after one: the last hour had sufficed 
for a decision rapidly formed and the first step towards 
its execution. It remained to secure the communica- 
tions with Athens. I rang up our Vice-Consul at Canea 
and asked him to fetch the manager of the Eastern 
Telegraph Company from his bed, and to let him 
speak to me on the consulate telephone. It was 
about two o'clock when the call came; I had had 
plenty of time to cogitate any details of the censorship- 



192 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

scheme for which I had not already provisionally 
arranged; but there was nothing intricate. "Orders," 
I said, but I did not mention whose, "orders are that 
the military censorship of all cable-messages to and 
from Crete comes into force from the time of this 
notification. I am afraid that the hour is inconvenient; 
but will you please go direct to the company's offices 
and give the necessary instructions? Wire Candia 
that the line via Syra is not to be used for outgoing 
messages, which, along with any messages received by 
that line, must be passed to you for transmission 
abroad or delivery in the island as the case may be. 
These, as well as all messages passing through the 
Canea office in the ordinary course, you will transmit 
to the ship for censorship (we had a private direct wire 
connecting us with the E.T.C.). I will provide for 
continuous censorship night and day, and release 
batches of messages by their numbers as arranged." 

The continuous censorship was going to mean some 
hard work; and the E.T.C. operators on board were 
likely to be kept in practice. They however could 
probably be reinforced next day; the censorship must 
be divided between the two of us who knew Greek. 
My fellow Intelligence Officer had been tied to his 
bed for some days past with a badly damaged knee. 
He must do day-duty, say from 8 a.m. till midnight, 
if I were busy with other things on board or, as was 
more likely, ashore, and I must deal with telegrams, 
or those marked "urgent" at any rate, at intervals 
during my sleeping hours. I woke him and explained 
matters, and he offered for duty for the remainder of 
this night as soon as the inrush should begin. I 
stirred up the nodding operator too, and told him 



THE REVOLUTION 193 

that the tedium of his night-watch would shortly be 
relieved. 

Then I went ashore again, and took with me the 
signal from the Legation. I felt that the S.N.O. 
might jib next morning if I delayed so long to show 
it to him and to mention the fact that a military cen- 
sorship was in working order. Besides I wanted 
authorisation for a blockade. I might have exceeded 
the limits of my discretion already, but I drew the line 
here. It was not so urgent either. 

All went well, and the blockade was authorised, — 
not under that name, of course; we could be diplo- 
matic sometimes; but all ships of the squadron were 
warned to detain, and to send in to Suda as convenient, 
all shipping leaving Crete; the right of search "would 
be exercised for the present at Suda. A little delay 
in exercising the right would affect all we wanted. 
But I did not mention to the S.N.O. or to anyone else 
the little episode of the spurious telegram. An accom- 
plice, even after the fact, may have qualms. Person- 
ally I felt none. 

Nor, when I returned on board and found the 
censorship already in operation, did I feel much 
anxiety either. Were this not a veracious chronicle, 
I should at this point have depicted myself tossing 
for a while feverishly in my bunk, then climbing on 
deck and restlessly pacing the bridge, gnawing a 
moustache grown suddenly for the purpose in defiance 
of the King's Regulations, impatiently throwing away 
good cigars half smoked and lighting fresh ones, 
straining my ears for the rattle of musketry in the 
direction of Canea and starting at the sound of an 
anchor-cable running out, fearful lest that red glow 



194 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

which I could descry in the heavens (due in fact to the 
sun, which rises in the east) were the reflection of a 
raging fire in the Turkish quarter of Canea (which 
lay due west). But as a matter of fact I slept very 
nicely, thank you. 

My agent woke me. He had not slept. He had 
waited in Canea until the messengers sent out from 
the centre should return and report their task com- 
pleted. He had also seen my messenger Ianni, who 
had covered his five miles or more across country 
in the dark in an hour, and had found Capetan Iannis 
still at Mournies. All had gone well, but it had been 
a near thing: some of the messengers had met their 
contingents on the march. "Well done, Alexander," 
I said, "and tell Ianni he did splendidly. We shall 
have no more trouble here for a day or two." "But 
what about Athens, sir," he said, "if they hear there, 
what everyone here knows now, that Venizelos is 
coming?" "That is all right," I said; "communica- 
tions were under control by 3 a.m."; and I explained 
to him how we stood. There was no fear that any 
secret would pass his lips. The whole story of what 
had happened that night and what might have hap- 
pened was known then and long afterwards only to him 
and to me. 

As for myself, I had established in my agent's 
esteem a reputation as a master-liar with a capacity 
for forestalling evil consequences, and he expected me 
to live up to it. Some three months and more later, 
when the Provisional Government was now firmly 
established, he came to me with a pitiful tale. Ianni, 
my messenger of that troubled night, had been sent to 
investigate some unusually circumstantial reports of 



THE REVOLUTION 195 

the visit of an enemy submarine to a point of the 
coast not far from Suda Bay. He had taken a gun 
and was ostensibly out to shoot nartridges for the 
Canea market. But a shrewd gendarme patrolling the 
coast had viewed his doings with suspicion, because he 
was exploring certain caves on the suspected portion 
of the coast, and caves are not the usual haunt of 
partridges. So Ianni, protesting the innocence of his 
doings, was none the less hailed off to justice and was^ 
ultimately lodged in prison at Suda. This he would 
have borne with a good grace, as incidental to the 
service on which he was employed, had it not now 
been New Year's Eve; but his wife was in tears at 
the thought of his separation from her on that festi- 
val, and in any case we could not leave him in 
prison indefinitely. 

Now, though the gendarmerie were at this date 
friendly to us, I had ample reasons for not wishing 
them to know that Ianni was in my service; I might 
for example need information about certain members 
of the local police-force itself; and my chief agent, 
who realised this, recounted to me the details of Ianni's 
misfortune, and his own perplexity to devise a means 
of escape without telling the truth. "Monsieur," he 
ended, "I cannot think of a good lie; I have come to 
you." 

Clearly my reputation was at stake, and I had 
to maintain it. I pondered the matter. Then, 
"Alexander," I said, "the common-folk here attach 
much importance to dreams, do they not?" He 
assented at once; belief in dreams is a marked feature 
of Greek superstition everywhere. "Very well then," 
I said, "let Ianni ask for an interview with the 



196 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

superintendent of police, and embroider with local 
colouring the following story: 'Mr. Superintendent,' 
he will say, 'I want to tell you the truth. I was not 
on a shooting expedition, as I said; that was only an 
excuse. What happened was this, but I beg that you 
will not tell people here ; they would laugh at me for 
the trouble into which my dreams have brought me. 
I dreamt for three nights in succession the same 
dream. I was standing on a cliff and saw a strange- 
looking boat heading straight towards me, and it 
disappeared into the cliff below my feet. I climbed 
down, and found there a large cave, but the strange 
ship was not in it; it had disappeared. But as I groped 
about in the darkness I found at the end of the cave 
a sack, and it was full of gold. And thereupon each 
time I woke. 

' 'Now I wondered day after day what this dream 
could mean, till I chanced one evening in a cafe to see 
a newspaper showing a silhouette of just such a strange 
ship as I had seen in my dream; and I read below 
that it represented a submarine, and that the English 
would pay two thousand pounds in gold for informa- 
tion leading to the destruction of such a ship (an ad- 
vertisement to this effect was regularly published in a 
Canea newspaper). So I knew then what the sack of 
gold had meant, and I told my wife that I was going 
away shooting for a few days, and I was searching the 
coast for a submarine when the gendarme arrested me. 
Please let me go, Mr. Superintendent, and say 
nothing to anyone, or they will laugh at me.' " 

My agent obtained an interview with Ianni, and 
Ianni in turn with the superintendent of police. 
Ianni was a plausible and effective raconteur, and was 



THE REVOLUTION 197 

free to dry his wife's tears that evening. I had saved 
my reputation in my agent's eyes, and, when later the 
superintendent himself retailed to me Ianni's confes- 
sion as a typical illustration of native superstition, I 
felt that I had deserved it. 

But I must return to the morning when I first 
made it. Hardly had my agent left me, when there 
arrived a note from Capetan Iannis, dated not from 
Mournies but from another village to which he had 
moved since 2 a.m., — so that I wondered how he too 
had spent his night. It was laconic. 

"Nerokouro, 
io (i.e. 23) September 1916. 

"Dear Mr. Admiral, — We received your note of 
Mr. Venizelos' telegram. We thank you very much, 
and we will act strictly in accordance with the instruc- 
tions which he gives us. 

"To-day some of our army will come for a walk to 
Suda. 

"We will preserve order as far as possible. — Yours, 
etc., The Chieftains, 

"Captain Kalogeris 
"Charalambos Th. Ploumidakis." 

I wonder how far Captain Iannis suspected me of 
any knowledge of the previous night's doings. The 
part of his army which came for a walk to Suda had 
orders from him to stop there. Were they offered in 
any sense as hostages, in surety that no further move 
should be made without our knowledge? I cannot 
say. I met him many times afterwards, but the 
subject of that night was not one which either of us 



198 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

could conveniently approach. It may be that he sent 
them only in the hope of opening up new food 
supplies. I was ashore in the forenoon talking to 
them, and the distribution of money for sustenance, 
a franc daily apiece, was proceeding. There was 
perfect quiet and order, as his letter had promised. 

PART V.— WORKING TO TIME 

It was just as well that Canea was now tranquil; 
for it was the turn of Candia to give us trouble. A 
little before noon one of the Canea committee, who 
had been meaning to come on board, espied me in the 
village street, where I was chatting with the new 
arrivals, and gave me news received by telephone 
from Candia. The two thousand Venizelists reported 
on the previous day as having penetrated into the 
town were in a parlous state. They were short of 
both food and ammunition. They were indeed 
patrolling the streets and in occupation of the 
ramparts; but an armed body of Royalists had 
massed outside the town, cutting off the Venizelists 
within from communication with the rest of their 
comrades in the villages round about. The shops 
were shut, and though the Venizelist patrols were 
strong enough to keep the Royalists of the town shut 
up in their houses and unable to concentrate, the 
latter might open fire from their windows on the 
patrols at any time, and were refraining from doing 
so, it was supposed, only through fear of being the 
first to provoke an attack and so getting their houses 
burnt down. It was an unstable deadlock; but, 
whether the Royalists knew it or not, the continuance 



THE REVOLUTION 199 

of the deadlock would tell against the Venizelists: 
without ammunition they could not break out of the 
town; without food they could not stay in it. It was 
proposed, my informant said, to supply them with am- 
munition that night, so that they might rejoin their 
comrades in the villages next morning. The gist of 
the matter was, — would we lend a trawler to run the 
ammunition through? 

This meant implicating ourselves fairly thoroughly, 
considering that officially we had no instructions to be 
other than neutral; but the military censorship and 
the blockade were hardly neutral actions, and so why 
not a bit of gun-running, or whatever was wanted? 
I did not see why the S.N.O. should stick at anything 
now, so I made provisional arrangements. A trawler, 
I knew, was available. 

A curious difficulty which arose was this. The 
envoy from Canea was insistent that the whole opera- 
tion must be carried through under cover of dark. 
The Venizelists picketing the road from Canea, 
whence the ammunition would be supplied, and those 
quartered now in Suda village, could not be trusted to 
let consignments of cartridges pass through their 
midst even for the use of their fellow-insurgents else- 
where. Food could be sent through, however hungry 
they might be, if they had orders to let it pass; but 
no Cretan of the mountains could keep his hands off 
good cartridges. I had been so much impressed with 
the discipline of our friends that I thought this must 
be an exaggeration, and consulted the chieftain of our 
local contingent. He confirmed it, and absolutely 
refused to be held responsible for good order in the 
village if we carted ammunition through it in daylight. 



200 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

I could but accept such a man's judgment. Acting 
upon it we should have only a bare twelve hours for 
the whole business ; cartage from Canea to Suda ar- 
senal; transfer by boat from the arsenal to a trawler 
(which could not come alongside any jetty) ; over six 
hours' steaming, even with good weather, to Candia; 
discharging into boats, with little light permissible, in 
the open sea outside Candia harbour; and distribution 
of the material ashore. It was not impossible; only 
every one must work to time. We arranged that 
closed cabs should be used for the first stage; they 
would be quicker and less remarked than a procession 
of carts. They would be driven straight through the 
village to the arsenal gates, which would be opened at 
once to admit them on presentation of a card which I 
initialled. Orders were also to be telephoned to 
Candia for some half-dozen heavy shore-boats to be 
lying off the harbour there three hours before sunrise. 

The plan was approved by the S.N.O. and the 
necessary arrangements made for loading the trawler 
rapidly that evening. The skipper of the trawler was 
as keen as could be over his share in the proceedings, 
and meant to make a record trip to Candia. When 
darkness fell, every one concerned kept just ahead of 
time, but the skipper deserved most credit, for a heavy 
swell was running off Candia, as it often does, and he 
carried through the discharge of all his cases of am- 
munition into the shore-boats without loss or mishap; 
and the stuff had been delivered and served out ashore 
before dawn. 

But before the hour for this operation had come, 
we spent an anxious afternoon. Reports kept on 
arriving at the Consulates in Canea by telephone from 



THE REVOLUTION 201 

their respective Vice-Consulates in Candia, which were 
retransmitted to the ship; and other messages too 
reached us from other sources. They were confusing 
and even contradictory. According to one firing had 
broken out; according to another the situation was 
critical, but no actual hostilities had begun. From 
what I learnt afterwards, I should say that the situa- 
tion throughout that day was farcical, though it might 
have become tragic at any moment. Both Venizelists 
and Royalists were ardently hoping that no one would 
fire a shot and necessitate a reply. The Prefect (him- 
self a Royalist, but chiefly concerned to obviate any 
street-fighting or destruction of property) , the Chief of 
the Police, the several Vice-Consuls, and the British 
naval officer commanding the trawlers, accompanied by 
his native interpreter, were engaged all the forenoon in 
a series of conferences with each other and with the 
leaders of the two parties, Dr. Maris and Mr. 
Michaelidakis. By the intervention of these several 
authorities spheres of influence were arranged. 
Royalist patrols were to guard the outskirts beyond 
the ramparts; the Venizelist patrols, aided if you 
please by the police under the direction of Royalist 
officers, were to control the streets; while the 
Venizelists alone should keep possession of the 
ramparts and the harbour. The Prefect, to avoid any 
outbreak, even agreed to requisition food from some 
of the closed Royalist shops and to issue rations to the 
insurgents; but this promise, I believe, was never 
made good. 

As the afternoon wore on, the Venizelists, many 
with empty stomachs now, became more and more 
despondent; and finally Dr. Maris, whose hold on his 



202 TALES OF tEGEAN INTRIGUE 

men was apparently none too strong, asked our officer 
to negotiate with the Prefect for an armistice, during 
which the Venizelist leaders should disband their men 
and send them back to their own villages, and they 
themselves, having done this, should be guaranteed a 
safe-conduct aboard the British trawler. Our officer, 
who had failed to discriminate sufficiently clearly 
between our official and unofficial attitudes towards 
the revolution, and had engaged rather in what would 
have been admirable police-work had we been both 
officially and actually neutral, telephoned a message 
which reached me a little after four o'clock proposing 
to give effect to Dr. Maris' request at six, unless orders 
to the contrary were received in the meantime. 

The S.N.O. was away somewhere, and the decision 
therefore rested with me. To consent would have 
meant the loss of Candia and the eastern half of the 
island before we had even occupied Canea or a shot 
had been fired. I replied, "Not approved. The 
Venizelists have their orders, and must carry them 
out. Further instructions await you aboard your 
trawler," — these instructions being about supervising 
the military censorship at Candia. The sudden in- 
stitution of the censorship had not become known to 
all our opponents, and illuminating messages were 
passing, or not passing, as we thought fit, between 
them and Athens. It was not a subject to mention 
yet on the telephone. The S.N.O. subsequently 
approved my action, and a signal to confirm and 
amplify my telephone-message was made by wireless. 
I had also telephoned a message for Maris urging him 
to hold out until the ammunition should reach him. 

He held out, and by dawn, as I have said, the 



THE REVOLUTION 203 

ammunition was landed and distributed among his 
followers. As to what happened next, I am not quite 
certain; but I infer that, having withdrawn his men 
from the streets to the vicinity of the harbour in order 
to serve out the ammunition, he decided to hold the 
harbour only, for which a portion of them would 
suffice, and to push westward along the coast with the 
remainder, securing communications as they proceeded, 
so as to join up with a body of adherents camped out- 
side in that direction, and so obtain food from the 
villages beyond. On this Sunday morning we certainly 
received a message from him for transmission to 
Venizelos which suggested that he was still in grave 
difficulties and could not hold out. "Impossible de 
retenir les homines," it said, u au deld de dimanche 
soir" ; but it was undated, and had, I imagine, been 
written about noon on the Saturday, before the 
increasing despondency of his men led him to suggest 
an armistice that same evening. For when we sent 
him an interim reply as it were, counselling him to 
use his own judgment as to the temporary disposal of 
his men, but to have them ready without fail on the 
Tuesday morning, he replied in far more cheerful 
strain. In the course of this Sunday one of the 
sloops, the Peony, took on board further supplies, 
mainly food-stuffs, for Maris, which were transshipped 
to a trawler lying off Candia on the next day, for 
landing in the course of the night before the possible 
operations on Tuesday morning should begin. By the 
Monday night we hoped to have Canea in our hands, 
and that success might make any armed conflict at 
Candia unnecessary. 



204 TALES OF J3GEAN INTRIGUE 

PART VI.— THE SIX MACHINE-GUNS 

On the whole this Sunday was the most quiet day 
we had had for some time, and, as the duties of the 
cable-censorship now broke up my night's rest to 
some extent, I was glad of some less crowded hours 
in which to clear up sundry arrears at my leisure. 

Among other things a signal had at last been 
received the previous evening from the Vice-Admiral, 
in response to my request for leave to set up a censor- 
ship, approving the proposal subject to our protecting 
the interests of the Eastern Telegraph Co. as against 
the Greek Government, by giving them their orders 
in writing. We were able to inform the V.A. quite 
truly that the censorship had been set up the same 
day; there was no need to mention the exact time 
when it was set up, or that we had anticipated his 
wishes by sixteen hours; and a formal copy of my 
orders, as telephoned previously, was sent to the 
E.T.C. accompanied by a declaration that in obeying 
them they were acting under force majeure. The force 
majeure was represented at Canea by a trawler patrol- 
ling outside the harbour and by the proximity of Suda 
Bay; at Candia a British officer with an interpreter 
had been stationed in the E.T.C. office, and the trawler 
lying off the place was now reinforced by a French 
cruiser sent in response to a telegram which the 
French Vice-Consul there had addressed to Athens 
(unknown to us, and quite unnecessarily), demanding 
protection, when the insurgents first entered Candia 
on the Friday. I also received the same afternoon 
from the Venizelist leaders in Canea for transmission 
to Venizelos a very satisfactory account of the local 



THE REVOLUTION 205 

troops: nine-tenths of them were expected to declare 
for him. The proportion of the officers was less 
favourable, but we were counting on nearly half of 
them. 

Our prospects for the following day were thus 
distinctly good. A mutiny inside the town, coinciding 
with the advance of the insurgents outside under 
Venizelos' own direction, should ensure the speedy 
capture of the place. There was only one factor in 
the situation which might be the cause of much blood- 
shed in the course of the operation: our opponents 
possessed six machine-guns. These were not in 
emplacements commanding the main approaches, as 
we had previously been led to expect, but were at 
headquarters under the eye of senior Royalist officers 
and, presumably, picked men. But there was neces- 
sarily much coming and going of all ranks at head- 
quarters, and we had two or three men who had easy 
access thereto and might achieve our purpose. Our 
intention was to tamper with the six machine-guns 
and put them out of action on the eve of the mutiny 
before open hostilities began; and this Sunday night 
was therefore the appointed time. 

What actually happened, I did not hear till next 
morning when the consequences had to be faced; but 
it was this. Two of our men were successful in 
gaining an entry and had dealt with three out of the 
six machine-guns, when one of the most determined 
Royalist officers (his name was one which I had seen 
on the list of the proscribed) caught them. He 
whipped out his revolver and fired several shots at 
them, clipping a bit off one man's ear but doing no 
further damage, and they made good their escape. 



206 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

Rumour soon ran the round of the barracks that some 
half-dozen men had been killed or wounded by this 
officer, whom all the men hated. The mutiny broke 
out. The Colonel with upwards of twenty of his 
officers and some fifty or sixty men managed to con- 
centrate in headquarters, a detached building, before 
it was surrounded. They disposed the three remain- 
ing machine-guns as best they could on the flat roof 
and elsewhere, but the back of the building, owing to 
a wall which gave cover to anyone approaching from 
that side, would have been practically defenceless even 
in daylight. The mutineers demanded their uncondi- 
tional surrender. This was refused; but when in turn 
the Colonel asked for a short armistice to afford time 
for deliberation, the request was granted, and a Royal- 
ist council of war was held. The Colonel refused 
flatly to surrender to any of his rebellious junior 
officers. Many of his supporters were for fighting the 
matter out. But in the end, to avoid useless blood- 
shed, the Colonel offered to surrender to the Consuls 
of the four Allied Powers on conditions to be arranged 
through their mediation. 

The four consulates were rung up, and about 
midnight the consular representatives of Italy, Russia, 
France, and Great Britain — that was their seniority, 
our recently appointed acting Vice-Consul attending 
in place of our Consul still detained at Athens, and 
being the junior in rank as well as the least conversant 
with the whole situation — arrived at headquarters. 
After negotiations protracted during several hours and 
involving much coming and going between head- 
quarters and the room where the Venizelist repre- 
sentatives sat, a protocol was drawn up and signed. 



THE REVOLUTION 207 

The terms in brief were that the Colonel with his 
officers and men should surrender to the four Consuls 
and be placed under the protection of the Powers 
whom they represented; and that headquarters 
together with all arms, ammunitions, books, papers, 
and other appurtenances and contents, should be 
handed over to the custody of the same four Powers 
until the said Powers should determine what was to 
be done with them. 

I had had a telephone message from our Vice- 
Consul about 2 a.m. to tell me that the mutiny had 
broken out and that the assistance of the Consuls had 
been invoked; but it was not till five in the morning 
that I received, by telephone again, a summary of the 
terms agreed. The Consuls wanted me to attend a 
conference at the Italian Consulate at 10. There was 
plenty to be done meantime. The latest turn of 
events had to be reported to the Vice-Admiral; a 
telegram received from Venizelos during the night, 
"I shall arrive Canea or Suda Bay on Monday eve- 
ning, but shall not land. The meeting (i.e. for the 
declaration of the Provisional Government) will take 
place on Tuesday," had to be passed to the Venizelist 
leaders, and later to be supplemented by a signal, 
received from a French ship escorting Venizelos, 
announcing his arrival at Suda for 5 p.m. ; and there 
was the usual pile of non-urgent telegrams, accumu- 
lated during the night, to be censored. 

When I arrived at the Conference, I was not 
impressed with the practical ability of the consular 
corps. They had taken no steps to give effect to 
their promise of protection for the surrendered officers 
and men, and of the safe custody of headquarters. 



208 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

Quite the reverse; they had dispersed all the officers 
to their own homes about the town, where we 
could give nothing but verbal protection, and had left 
the men under no one's charge at headquarters, free 
to pilfer or damage the contents for which the Allies 
had assumed responsibility; and now the only 
suggestion before us was that the Consuls should 
dispatch identic telegrams to their Legations in 
Athens, explaining the situation and asking for in- 
structions. As Venizelos was due in seven hours' 
time and, even though his landing and the meeting 
were deferred till next day, we might reasonably look 
for some effervescence of feelings and of fire-arms 
that evening, some more active measure seemed 
requisite. To obtain joint instructions from four 
Legations within seven hours was really impossible, — 
within seven days would have been phenomenal, 
within seven weeks quite good. I expressed my views 
with some frankness. 

What then did I propose, they asked me. I was 
ready to propose a considerable programme for the 
day if they would enable me to carry it through; so I 
countered with another question, — did any one of the 
Consuls suppose that the lives of all the officers and 
men under their protection were sufficiently safe- 
guarded for the next twenty-four hours by the verbal 
guarantee given? They were unanimous in saying 
"No." Did they intend then to redeem their pledge 
by offering them the shelter of the Consulates, and 
taking in some twenty or more apiece? An equally 
unanimous "No." Did they then wish the S.N.O. to 
relieve them of their responsibility and to make all 
provision for carrying out the terms of the surrender? 



THE REVOLUTION 209 

Yes, they would welcome that. One more question 
(and a slightly delicate one, for a Consul proper ranks 
in dignity and precedence with a post-captain, and a 
lieutenant R.N.V.R. is probably on a level with an 
acting Vice-Consul or thereabouts) : seeing that the 
matter was urgent, would they accept me as the 
S.N.O.'s representative and comply with my orders 
for the day? The Italian Consul who was my very 
good friend acquiesced willingly, and as he was doyen 
the others could not but follow suit; but it was really 
good of them to commit themselves to a stiff day's 
work when none of them had been to bed that night. 

My plan was briefly to have a guard of marines or 
bluejackets under an officer sent up to headquarters 
at once to take charge there. "What flag will be 
hoisted?" said the Russian Consul, who had a taste 
for etiquette and red herrings. "All four," I said 
gravely; "one at each corner of the roof; and the 
Greek flag over the entrance." That red herring was 
scotched. The officers, I proceeded, must be notified 
to assemble not later than 2.30 at some centre — might 
we say the Italian Consulate? My friend the doyen 
consented. They must place themselves at the 
disposal of the S.N.O. entirely, and would in the first 
place be conveyed to Suda Arsenal. "But they will 
want to bring their wives and families," said some one. 
That was true; if a hue and cry were raised for the 
most hated officers by any drunken mutineers that 
evening, and they were not at home, their families 
would not be safe. Very good then; the assembly 
at the consulate would be larger, and we must have 
more carriages. The cortege would be conducted to 
Suda by an escort of bluejackets; and the moment 



210 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

that we were clear of them, a roll-call would be taken 
of the men who had surrendered and were still at 
headquarters, and they would march to Suda under 
the escort of another party of bluejackets. 

The first task was to notify officers and men of 
the arrangements made for them. The men's case 
presented no difficulty; one message sent at once to 
headquarters would give them ample warning, even 
if they too should wish to collect their wives and 
families. The officers on the other hand were at 
their own houses. The Consuls had a list of their 
names, and their addresses were forthcoming from a 
directory or some such source. They were to be 
portioned out into four zones, for each of which one 
of the Consuls would be responsible, driving round 
and seeing each officer personally — so the scheme 
gradually took shape — and requiring him to sign a 
short notice which we would type out at once. 

While one or two of them mapped out the zones, 
I drafted a short notice: "The Senior Naval Officer 
assumes responsibility for giving effect to the protocol 
by which the lives of the officers who placed them- 
selves under the protection of the four Consuls are 
guaranteed, on the condition that the said officers 
assemble not later than 2.30 p.m. at the Italian 
Consulate and hold themselves at the disposal of the 
British Naval Officer representing him." Then came 
the hitch : no one present could typewrite in Greek. 
The Consulate possessed a machine, but those of the 
Consuls who knew any Greek knew it for household 
purposes mainly, and were not competent to write in 
it; and the Consul's clerk too was away, taking part 
probably in the general confusion of the town. I 



THE REVOLUTION 211 

unfortunately had never used a typewriter, but had 
to volunteer for this duty. The Italian Consul 
arranged the instrument for the requisite number 
of carbon-copies, and stood by to control the mechan- 
ism while I laboriously fingered the keys, using capitals 
only, to avoid the further complication of accents, and 
telling him each time a word was completed. And all 
the while I felt we were wasting precious minutes, for 
the elaboration of the project had naturally caused 
some discussion and taken time. 

But it was done at last, and if it was not a master- 
piece of typography it was at least readable. Car- 
riages had been called meantime, and the Consuls set 
out on their rounds. 

I now got busy on the telephone, calling up the 
ship first, where the commander was soon at the other 
end of the wire. I asked him to explain to the S.N.O. 
that I was carrying on in his name, and what I was 
doing; and stated my requirements in guard and 
escorts. These the commander promised to send. 
Next I called up my agent in Suda village. A good 
deal had to depend on his activity. The risky part 
of the scheme lay in conveying the Royalist officers 
and men along a road picketed by the insurgents and 
through Suda village where two or three hundred 
of them were quartered. But the only alternative 
method of rescuing them would have been to ask for 
a trawler to embark them at Canea harbour, and I 
reckoned that a concentration of them on the quay for 
this purpose would expose us to worse risks than the 
land route to Suda. The town was full of the soldiers 
who had mutinied overnight, and their partisans there 
would be celebrating the occasion with them. 



212 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

I learnt indeed in the course of the day, after my 
decision had been taken, that some of these soldiers 
were more in hand than I had expected. One of the 
Venizelist leaders had been down to Suda during the 
morning to ask for a trawler to carry two hundred and 
fifty of them with their officers to Candia as a rein- 
forcement for George Maris; and the S.N.O. had 
sent him back to me with a message that a trawler 
could be provided if I saw no objection to assisting 
in the transport of the revolted troops. I was long 
past objecting to any form of complicity in the 
revolution, and the troops were duly sent. But I 
could not help picturing the consternation which our 
doings would have caused at the Legation in Athens 
had they been known. Within half an hour of this 
permission being given, our Consul turned up, having 
just arrived in a sloop from Piraeus; and when I 
asked him why the sloop had not waited to escort 
Venizelos (we had assumed that she would do so), 
he informed me that the French were taking the 
responsibility for bringing Venizelos over. Truly 
our Legation was safeguarding itself and the Consul 
thoroughly from any suspicion of complicity. There 
were some cautious folk in the Foreign Office. 

Nevertheless I think that the choice of routes was 
right; there were still some six or seven hundred 
soldiers about the town, and, even if their remaining 
officers could control them, there would be a large 
unruly element of civilian partisans with no officers 
nor chieftains to impose order. On the Suda road 
the chieftains could maintain discipline if they were 
warned betimes. I told my agent therefore to see 
the chieftain in Suda on my behalf, to explain in 



THE REVOLUTION 213 

detail what I was intending, to say that I had given 
my word for the safe-conduct of the Royalists, and to 
request that the route might be patrolled and picketed 
by trustworthy men as a precaution against any irre- 
sponsible outbreak. The same message was to be 
given to any chieftain at present in charge of any 
part of the route and, if possible, to Capetan Iannis. 
The officers' carriages would be due to leave the 
Italian Consulate at 3 p.m., but in case of delay my 
agent was to be at his telephone from that hour to 
receive a message from me as to the exact time of 
starting, and was then to bicycle at once up the road to 
Canea to pass the word and see that all was in order. 
Each batch of carriages would have a formal escort 
of bluejackets to indicate that it was under British 
protection. 

There was only one more preparation to make, — 
the provision of carriages for an indeterminate number 
of persons. I went down into the town, and ordered 
the two companies who owned most of the carriages 
of the town to send me every vehicle they possessed 
to the Italian Consulate by 2.30, and snatched the 
opportunity to get a bite of food at a cafe while 
waiting for one of the carriages to drive me up to the 
Consulate again. 

By the time I got back, our guests had begun to 
arrive, and the cabs in which they came were detained, 
whether they belonged to either of the companies or 
no; and gradually a scene of wonderful confusion 
developed. The officers had brought not only wives 
and families with a reasonable amount of baggage, 
but household gear of all sorts in hastily improvised 
bundles, — blankets, kitchen utensils, and even a few 



214 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

iron bedsteads. They were all far too excited to sit 
in their carriages, and the road was strewn with im- 
pedimenta which had had to be removed before the 
occupants could struggle out; and up and down 
among the debris they surged, gesticulating and 
ejaculating, losing their children and their belongings, 
and searching the wrong cabs frantically to retrieve 
them. 

The only orderly element was the carriages, which 
were marshalled, by the escort of a dozen bluejackets 
now arrived, into a queue heading towards the Suda 
road. 

I have spoken of the Italian Consulate as being in 
Canea; more strictly speaking, it is in the suburb of 
Halepa, from which the main Suda road can be 
reached by skirting the town proper. A crowd had 
naturally collected to watch the proceedings, but no 
Greek crowd is very large or active in the heat of the 
early afternoon, and a few bluejackets easily sufficed to 
keep them back; once en route there was little fear of 
interference by the townspeople on the outskirts. 

Somehow we ticked off the officers' names, and 
only two were missing, — one who had not been found 
by the Consuls, and another who was due to be 
married that evening. The wedding however was 
postponed, and he arrived in time to catch the last 
carriages. The hour for starting was now already 
past, and the Italian Consul offered to get the mob 
into their carriages with due regard to their dignity 
and precedence. Most of them being in plain clothes 
and unknown to me, I was only too thankful that he 
should. He was the only one of the consular corps 
who really worked incessantly. The Russian was 



THE REVOLUTION 215 

present in an ornamental way and engaged the Colonel 
and the leading ladies in polite conversation as at a 
soiree. The French Vice-Consul had gone to sleep 
on a sofa, while I was typewriting in the morning, 
and punctuated the proceedings with snores; and, 
after he had done his round in quest of the officers, 
the call of dejeuner had proved paramount. The 
British Vice-Consul had been withdrawn from further 
service when the Consul returned. 

So the Italian set to work; but, as fast as he 
induced them to get into the carriages, they popped 
out into the roadway on the other side, to see where 
their friends were seated, or to find missing bags, and 
then mistaking their carriage came round clamouring 
and complaining that their seats had been appropriated 
by an officer or lady of less dignity. "Comment qa 
vaf" I asked the Italian Consul, and he spread his 
hands in humorous despair. But it really was serious; 
we were badly behind time, and I wanted to have all 
these people in safety at Suda by 5 o'clock when 
Venizelos was due, or at any rate before dusk. So I 
asked the Consul whether I should try another method 
of filling the carriages with less regard to precedence, 
and he was thankful this time. 

I passed word to the bluejackets that the carriages 
would start in batches of six at three-minute intervals. 
Three of the men would form the escort for each six. 
Any persons and any baggage were to be stowed in 
any carriage to the limit of its capacity, and no 
carriage was to stop for any purpose until it arrived in 
the arsenal: any passengers or goods that fell out 
would be picked up by the last carriage, — my own. 
Then I tried my device. "The first six carriages, 



216 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

gentlemen, leave in three minutes," I shouted. There 
was a rush for them; the bluejackets piled pro- 
miscuous paraphernalia, wherever it would lodge, 
inside or out, and perched themselves grinning on top. 
They were off in less than the three minutes, as 
ramshackle a cortege as Crete will ever see. And so it 
went on, — next six carriages in another three minutes, 
next and next ditto, — and our four squadrons were 
under way. Only my own carriage remained. I 
left my Italian friend laughing as genially as any of 
the bluejackets at the successful pandemonium, drove 
round to headquarters to see that all was in order 
for the men to be marched down, thence to the house 
of the one missing officer, took him and his wife with 
me, and so reached Suda. The Venizelist patrols had 
been organised, and behaved admirably. I had not 
forgotten to have the hour of our actual departure 
telephoned to my agent, and the word had been passed. 
The only incident was that as the men marched down 
after me, accompanied by their escort under one of 
our officers, there had been a feu-de-joie by way of 
ironical salute from one knot of insurgents who 
watched them pass. 

The S.N.O. met me in the arsenal and approved 
of what I had done, but seemed a little doubtful about 
the best means to entertain our guests. I had been 
pondering the same matter myself. The barracks 
would do for the men who were coming, but the 
officers and their families would need better accom- 
modation. The unofficial blockade proved a blessing 
now. The Peneos, a Greek steamship, was among 
those awaiting examination, and I suggested that we 
should commandeer her. I went off and broke the 



THE REVOLUTION 217 

news to her captain that his ship was temporarily a 
floating hotel, and that dinner and beds were wanted 
at once for about seventy persons. Then the picket- 
boat and others got to work, and our guests and their 
baggage were deposited safe aboard the Peneos. 

Venizelos' ship was late and not yet in. I had time 
for some dinner before she was reported, and then in 
company with our navigating officer went down the 
harbour to meet and board her. While the navigating 
officer brought her to her anchorage, I told Venizelos 
how things stood, and was glad to think (not quite 
correctly) that we were now relieved of our work. 
As a third party who had no instructions to be other 
than neutral, we had done a fair share toward further- 
ing a bloodless revolution. 

PART VII.— A PROBLEM OF JURISPRUDENCE 

It was a relief to wake next morning free from 
any anticipations of massacres, mutinies, or other 
mischief. The Vice-Admiral provided a little quiet 
fun after breakfast by a signal informing us that 
Monsieur Venizelos, accompanied by Admiral 
Coundouriotis and several naval and military officers, 
would arrive in Crete this morning, Tuesday, to lead 
a movement in favour of action against the Bulgarians. 
We had been nourishing suspicions that something of 
this sort might be in the wind, and were glad to 
receive official confirmation of them, although we were 
still left in doubt what our correct attitude should be 
towards any local strife which might be apprehended. 
Another signal from the same source ordered us to 
remove all arms from military headquarters in Canea 



218 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

to Suda Bay, so as to avoid maintaining a guard there; 
so clearly the possibility or fact of local strife had not 
been overlooked. This order could not safely be 
carried out at once, as it would have been tempting 
Providence, or at any rate our allies, to cart some 
seventeen hundred rifles and a quantity of ammunition 
through their midst. I had been warned once of their 
besetting sin. 

I spent the forenoon in a cursory examination of 
the shipping which we had collected in the harbour, 
and, the blockade being no longer required, released 
them. The Peneos, being full of the Royalist officers 
and their families, constituted the only difficulty; 
but, just before Venizelos landed, I obtained from him 
the loan of the Atrometos, in which some of his staff 
and followers had come (his own ship was the 
Hesperia) , and the Royalists were transshipped to her. 
They were a nuisance for some days, as we could get 
no orders as to disposing of them in spite of repeated 
signals both to the V.A. and to the Legation asking 
for instructions. Finally on 30th September, after 
five days' detention, we put them once more aboard 
the Peneos, which had been to Retimo and Candia and 
back, and was now bound for Piraeus, and merely re- 
ported the action as taken. 

After lunch Venizelos, who had been receiving the 
local leaders aboard the Hesperia all the forenoon, 
went ashore in our picket-boat. I landed with him, 
and many of our officers were already ashore awaiting 
his landing, but none of us went on to the meeting at 
Canea. We were reverting to the role of interested 
and friendly spectators of an historic event, but it was 
not for us to do the shouting if a Provisional 



THE REVOLUTION 219 

Government should be proposed. Had not the press 
of Canea certified, not so long before, that we were 
blameless of any interference in domestic politics? 
So we saw Venizelos oft in a flower-decked motor- 
car, lent and driven by my young French friend from 
Canea, with all the ramshackle vehicles of Canea and 
the neighbourhood racing through clouds of dust in 
his wake. 

By the next morning, 27th September, the Pro- 
visional Government, to wit Venizelos and Coun- 
douriotis to whom a third partner (General Danglis) 
was subsequently to be added, was installed in the 
best hotel, and Canea was in their hands without a 
shot being fired. But the position of Candia was still 
disquieting, and I was summoned to a conference. 

The less said about that conference the better. I 
would omit all mention of it, were it not that the 
finale of this narrative would become inconsequent 
without it, and also that I had the opportunity of 
seeing that the new government consisted of two 
straight-dealing men. Suffice it to say that the 
political leaders in Canea had repented of the bad 
bargain they had made when Colonel Bakas and his 
officers surrendered. They saw now, what the 
Colonel had been acute enough to see then, that arms 
handed over to the custody of the four Allied Powers, 
until those Powers should determine what was to be 
done with them, were not likely to be immediately 
available for the use of the Venizelists ; and they 
wanted those three intact machine-guns for use at 
Candia. They wanted them in fact so badly that they 
proposed to "vary" the terms of the surrender. 
The method of "varying" involved the suppression 



220 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

of one document and the alteration of another. But 
the matter had passed out of the hands of the Consuls 
into those of the S.N.O. by virtue of my circular to 
the Royalist officers, and of a further formal con- 
firmatory letter from the S.N.O. to the consular 
corps; and to this fact I owed my summons to the 
meeting. Venizelos and Coundouriotis, who naturally 
could not yet know all the details of recent affairs, 
were present to hear what could be done, and were 
most anxious in view of the military situation to 
have the machine-guns if it were possible. 

But, to cut the story short, it was not possible 
without a breach of faith. I refused to consider the 
proposal or, when this was pressed, even to submit it 
to the S.N.O. To do so would be degrading to 
myself and insulting to him. Thereupon Admiral 
Coundouriotis made his sole contribution to the de- 
bate: "You are right," he said; and, Venizelos at once 
concurring, the proposal was defeated. 

The discussion now turned to the possibility of 
obtaining the three machine-guns by legitimate means, 
— that is with the consent of the four Powers. As 
the S.N.O. had now, with the acquiescence of both 
Royalists and Venizelists, relieved the Consuls of their 
responsibility, a decision on this matter would 
necessarily be conveyed to us by the Vice-Admiral, 
under whose orders we were, and not by the Legations 
in Athens. This fact might make for a quicker 
decision; for the Vice-Admiral would be entitled to 
give orders on his own responsibility, if he wished, as 
representing the Allies as a whole in those waters. 
Pending his decision the machine-guns must remain in 
our custody; but there was nothing to prevent us from 



THE REVOLUTION 221 

making such arrangements as were convenient for 
handing over the machine-guns without further delay 
and at a suitable spot, should the Vice-Admiral's 
authorisation be received. I proposed therefore to 
Venizelos that we should at once submit to the Vice- 
Admiral his request for the guns (the V.A. knew of 
course already the conditions on which we held them), 
and meantime transfer to Suda both them and the rest 
of the arms at headquarters. At Suda they would be 
ready for shipping wherever desired. The removal of 
the arms had already been ordered by the V.A., and, 
if Venizelos would see that there was no interference 
by his partisans, we were anxious to give effect to the 
order as soon as possible. 

Venizelos agreed to this, but wanted more. At 
Suda the machine-guns would still be a long way 
from Candia. Could nothing be done to have them 
ready at the spot where they would be wanted? I 
offered to send them by sea to Candia, and to deposit 
them, still in our custody, in the trawler lying off 
Candia harbour. This satisfied him, and I returned 
to Suda and reported. A signal was then made to 
the V.A., and the rest of the day was spent in making 
arrangements for removing the arms on the morrow. 
The provision of the necessary carts, mainly borrowed 
from the barracks, and of working-parties, entailed 
some organisation, and the demenagement itself would 
require a whole day. In the evening the V.A. replied 
refusing to give an answer with regard to the machine- 
guns until the whole of the arms had been removed, 
as ordered, to Suda. Next day, 28th September, we 
were able to report that this had been done, and that 
the naval guard had been withdrawn from head- 



222 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

quarters, leaving all papers, etc., in sealed cupboards 
for which Venizelos had accepted responsibility. 

On the morning of 29th September, the situation 
at Candia, though vastly improved in the course of 
the last five days, still caused much concern. The 
ammunition which we had run through before the 
dawn of Sunday the 24th had just saved an almost 
hopeless position; the food supplies and further 
ammunition sent two days later had put heart into our 
friends for a coup, if required, on the Tuesday; but 
no fighting had actually been necessary, for the arrival 
of the two hundred and fifty soldiers from among 
those who had mutinied at Canea so disheartened the 
Royalists, that those of them who meant to show fight 
abandoned the town, as they were free to do (the 
Venizelists being concentrated at the harbour and 
along the coast westward), and joined up with the 
other bands of Royalists outside the town on the 
south and east. Then on the 27th, the day on which 
the conference over the machine-guns was held, we 
had carried some three hundred more of these troops, 
at Venizelos' request, to Retimo (which needed a 
small garrison) and to Candia. The upshot was that 
Candia itself, with its government offices and means of 
communication, was as completely in the hands of the 
Provisional Government as Canea; but there was a 
force of Royalists, estimated at some two thousand, 
concentrated at a village east of the town and within 
easy striking distance. 

Such was the position when in the forenoon of 
29th September the Vice-Admiral's reply arrived. 
"The two machine-guns" — one of the three not 
tampered with had been found to be defective, so that 



THE REVOLUTION 223 

the issue of our local wars was hanging on two only — 
"the two machine-guns may be lent, if you consider 
it necessary for the maintenance of law and order, but 
are not to be used in a partisan manner." 

The wisdom of the decree, I could not help 
feeling, was like the wisdom of our legislators who 
draft and sanction laws and leave the judges to inter- 
pret their meaning: and the interpretation was 
expressly left to us, — "if you consider." The S.N.O. 
authorised me to see Venizelos at once and practically 
left to me that interpretation. As I drove up to 
Canea, there was plenty of consideration to be done. 
"The maintenance of law and order" is obviously 
the first function of a government; but if that govern- 
ment styles its own self "provisional," is less than three 
days old, and is not recognised by a large body of 
opponents some of whom are still under arms to resist 
it, would an attack upon that armed force be a 
governmental or a partisan action? Were not the 
Royalists still lawfully under arms, so far as legality is 
compatible with revolution? Could not they justly 
claim to be championing the maintenance of law and 
order which an insurrection had upset? It is a nice 
point of political jurisprudence, but from a common- 
sense point of view I judged that an attack upon the 
Royalist force outside Candia would be a partisan act. 

On the other hand the Provisional Government 
was a government de facto, if not yet de jure. It had 
not been recognised by any other government, as a 
government de jure should be; but de facto it con- 
trolled by now the civil and military administration 
of the island; the former prefects and mayors had 
accepted its authority, or had been replaced by others 



224 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

who did; the chief towns with their municipal officers, 
telegraphs, and police were in its hands. It was 
justified then in using every resource at its disposal, 
including the military, to discharge the first function 
of government, the maintenance of law and order. If 
therefore the Royalists concentrated outside Candia 
should disturb public order by attacking the place, 
the government, as such, would be not merely at 
liberty, but actually under the obligation, to use force 
— machine-guns and all, if they had any — to repel and 
defeat them. 

In fact if the Provisional Government were recog- 
nised as a government, we might lend them the 
machine-guns for the discharge of a government's 
function, and for no other purpose. So I summed 
it up. Could we then recognise this de facto govern- 
ment? It seemed to me that if I should take this last 
presumptuous step, I should be inviting rebuke for 
myself and possibly repudiation for my signature : even 
ministers plenipotentiary so-called may not sign such 
documents without instructions from home; but on 
the other hand weeks would pass (as indeed they 
did) before the Foreign Office would have taken 
sufficient cognisance of the fait accompli (the one 
argument which never fails of final, if tardy, effect in 
the diplomatic world) to accord the recognition needed 
now. 

Yes, but there was still one way of escape. Why 
should we not accept from Venizelos and Coundouriotis 
a written statement in which, after describing them- 
selves as the de facto government of Crete, th~y should 
undertake to use the machine-guns, if lent to them, 
solely in discharging the government's first function, 



THE REVOLUTION 225 

the maintenance of law and order? Any partisan 
use of the guns, such as for an attack upon the 
Royalists, could be explicitly ruled out by the terms 
on which the loan was made. 

Such was the proposition I made to Venizelos 
when I had shown him the Vice-Admiral's reply; and 
sitting in the salon of the hotel overlooking Canea quay 
and harbour, the same room in which I had awaited 
the hour for our raid on the Sourourzade brothers not 
many weeks before, and had more recently had con- 
verse with Mr. Eleutheriadis' emissary, we drafted 
together the following document. 

"gouvernement provisoire. 

"La Canee, 
"le 16/29 Sept. 19 16. 
"A Monsieur le Capitaine de Vaisseau, 
Commandant l'Escadre Anglaise, 
a la Sude. 

"Nous soussignes, formant actuellement le 
gouvernement de fait dans Tile de Crete, et etant 
maitres de la ville de Candie, nous engageons, si 
Monsieur l'officier naval superieur a la Sude nous 
remet les mitrailleuses qui lui ont ete confiees, de ne 
les employer que pour soutenir le bon ordre dans le 
pays, c'est a dire, pour la defense de l'etat des choses 
etabli et non pas dans le but d'une attaque. II est 
bien entendu que ces mitrailleuses seront a la dis- 
position de Monsieur le capitaine de vaisseau pour 
lui etre remises dans le cas ou il nous en ferait la 
demande. 

"E. K. Venizelos, 

"P. COUNDOURIOTIS." 



226 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

I returned with this document to Suda, having 
promised that, if the S.N.O. should be satisfied with 
the undertaking, we would make a signal to the 
trawler at Candia to hand over the guns to Venizelos' 
representative, who would be instructed by him 
meanwhile as to the strict conditions governing their 
use. To make assurance doubly sure, we exacted 
from the military commandant at Candia, when he 
took delivery, a receipt for them specifying the condi- 
tions in similar terms. 

Awaiting me at Suda I found a further signal 
from the Vice-Admiral : "Any de facto governments 
established in Crete, Mytilene, Lemnos, and Chios 
may be recognised unofficially." Once more I was 
happy to think I had anticipated his wishes with 
precision; there had been something quite unofficial 
about the proceedings. Whether I ought to have 
emphasised that aspect of the negotiations by wearing 
a claw-hammer coat, as consular propriety afterwards 
prescribed, I leave as an unsolved problem. 

A day or two later Venizelos asked me verbally 
whether it would be in accord with the provisions of 
our agreement to make a military demonstration, in 
which the two machine-guns would have a place of 
honour, in the vicinity of the village where the 
Royalists were still concentrated. I replied that if 
the demonstration did not approach the village so 
nearly as to provoke an attack, but merely exhibited 
the machine-guns at a distance well out of range, 
there could be no objection; but that, to obviate 
any possible indiscretion on the part of the officer 
conducting the demonstration, it would be preferable 
that the machine-guns should be exhibited unac- 



THE REVOLUTION 

companied by their ammunition. This was done; and 
the Royalist resistance in the village collapsed like the 
walls of Jericho, but without the machine-gun party 
completing even one circuit. 

And the rest of the acts of the Provisional 
Government, and the islands that they won to their 
cause, and their recognition by the Foreign Office, 
and the mustering of their troops at Salonica, and the 
dethronement of Constantine, and the victory of the 
Cretan and Serres divisions on the heights of Doiran, 
are they not written in the chronicles of "our special 
correspondent"? 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 

PART I.— AN UNAUTHORISED STROKE 

It might have been expected that the success of the 
Cretan revolution would have heartened the Allied 
governments to take some decisive and effective action 
in Greece proper. But our Foreign Office at least was 
still officially advised that a reconciliation between 
Venizelos and the king was not beyond the power of 
our skilled diplomacy, and the general disunion of the 
four Great Powers concerned prevented the presenta- 
tion of any ultimatum. Notes of course continued to 
flow in, sometimes semi-officially described as penulti- 
mata or antepenultimata, but the king and his clique 
rightly estimated them as scraps of paper, and kept the 
Allied Legations diverted and divided by a specious 
haggling over details; while we, who had done our 
work in despite of official timidity, were eating out our 
hearts in despair that half its fruits should be left 
ungathered, and waiting, waiting, day by day, for an 
ultimatum that never came. 

For, if the Allies had neither the sense nor the 
spirit to use the opportunity thrust ready into their 
hands, the situation on the mainland could not but 
deteriorate to their detriment. A child might have 
seen that. Day by day the more ardent Venizelists had 
been leaving the king's domain, — some few selected 

228 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 229 

officers or counsellors to accompany their leader in his 
first venture in Crete, others to Samos, Chios, and 
Mytilene to raise in those islands too the spirit of 
revolt, and yet more, not leaders only, but soldiers 
volunteering for service in the ranks against the 
Bulgarians, to Salonica, where the Committee of 
National Defence had merged its existence and aims 
in those of the Provisional Government: and day by 
day as the country was drained of its patriots, the 
power of the king and his military advisers became 
more absolute and unchallenged. Yes, a child might 
have seen it; but was it seen? And if seen, why was 
no action taken? Was there ineptitude to see, or 
timidity to act? Or will our mandarins prefer to 
plead the disunion of Allied counsels, the joint in- 
eptitude of all? 

Two months passed in the exchange and discussion 
of Notes and their amendments, and late in November 
the four Powers agreed that something must be done, 
— something impressive without being too serious, and 
above all without committing them to any new line of 
policy, — a naval demonstration, say, off Piraeus, and a 
formal military occupation of Athens, but purely 
formal, bien entendu, nothing to hurt the susceptibilities 
of the Royalists or to make them think that the Allies 
meant business. The king was approached accordingly, 
and informed that on ist December a few companies 
of British and French troops would be disembarked at 
Piraeus and marched up to Athens. The two Powers 
concerned had certain rights of intervention as the 
guarantors of Greek independence and of the Greek 
constitution over which His Majesty so happily pre- 
sided. The landing of troops must therefore be 



230 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

viewed, not as a hostile act, but as an assertion of the 
guaranteeing Powers' lively concern to discharge their 
obligations. The king accepted these assurances for 
what they were worth, and gave his word, for what it 
too was worth, that no opposition should be offered. 

So orders were given for the parade in full service 
kit and the formal march to Athens; and meantime 
at Athens, where no opposition was to be offered, 
printed hand-bills inciting to massacre were posted 
and circulated in the streets, and crosses were painted 
at night on the doors of Venizelist households, and 
trenches were dug on the hills south and south-west 
of Athens that command the routes from Piraeus and 
Phalerum, and machine-gun emplacements were con- 
structed, and the Legations shut their eyes, for to 
doubt the king's word was abominable unto them. 

What ensued, all the world knows. Machine-gun 
fire was opened on the troops still in column of route; 
riflemen in trenches on the hills shot them down in 
the open plain; the French Admiral in command of 
the whole demonstration, who should have been aboard 
his ship, was caught unawares in Athens and besieged 
inside the Zappeion; the British naval officer on whom 
the command devolved fired a few rounds of blank, 
but when the captain of some smaller ship took the 
matter more seriously and put a couple of shells 
through the king's palace, he was ordered to desist. 

The king was thoroughly frightened now, but one 
or other of the Allied Ministers was more so, and 
forestalled the king in his haste to capitulate. The 
"cease fire" was sounded, and the British and French 
troops were allowed to retire to their ships; but the 
massacre of Venizelists in Athens went merrily on, 






THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 231 

and the Greek troops from the trenches were now free 
to assist. 

So at any rate I had the story in outline from 
Venizelist refugees who escaped and took refuge in 
Crete. There were many versions, and divers appor- 
tionments of blame. Whether an official version was 
ever issued, I do not know, nor, if it was, what 
credence should attach to it. One fact only I will put 
on record: four or five days before the massacre, 
refugees from Athens, more prompt to act than those 
who later described it to me, had been arriving at 
Canea, convinced that no Venizelist's life was safe in 
Athens; and I was so fully persuaded that serious 
trouble was brewing (though I knew nothing then of 
any projected landing of troops which might furnish 
the occasion), that I inserted in my Intelligence Report 
for the Vice-Admiral and the Legation a warning based 
on the refugees' information. How the authorities 
on the spot failed to the very last to see what even at 
that distance we foresaw some days in advance, would 
need a long official explanation. 

By next day, thanks mainly to the exertions of one 
R.N.R. officer, who got no recognition of his services, 
though more than one of those whom he rescued were 
decorated for their share in the disaster, the Legation 
staffs and the foreign residents under their protection 
were safely housed in a ship lying off Salamis; the 
British Intelligence Service decamped to Syra; and in 
Athens the massacre of the Venizelists continued 
spasmodically, while gross cartoons appeared in the 
Royalist papers, ridiculing even our dead soldiers, the 
victims of the king's perfidy and the Legations' folly. 

It was now felt that the incident could not be 



232 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

overlooked, and a fresh interchange of notes began 
between the floating Legation and the Greek govern- 
ment. It was ultimately arranged that the flags of 
the four Allied Powers should be publicly saluted, and 
that compensation should be paid to the next-of-kin of 
the men who had fallen. Also, so the story went 
round, when in the course of the negotiations the king 
offered once again to give his word for some detail, 
one of the ministers retorted, "Your Majesty gave 
your word before; I should have preferred that you 
had kept it." And this bon mot not only served to 
rehabilitate the minister's reputation, but was deemed a 
just and adequate penalty for the king, who retained 
the throne for yet another six months. True, by 
breaking his word, he had been guilty of a treacherous 
murder; and when in 1898 a similarly treacherous 
attack was made by the Mohammedans of Candia 
upon a small British force occupying the place, the 
while they massacred also the Christian inhabitants of 
the town, the penalty inflicted by Admiral Noel was 
the hanging of seventeen ringleaders — one for each 
British soldier killed. But this exact parallel, and the 
precedent which it furnished, were, it seems, forgotten; 
it occurred to no one that Constantine should have 
been hanged like any one of those seventeen. Que 
voulez-vous? There are many who think the Kaiser 
has not yet earned the gibbet. It is hard indeed for 
monarchs to earn it; what could the man have done 
more? 

These happenings were the prelude to a blockade 
of Greece, to be enforced until such time as the Allies' 
demands, including the dissolution of the soldiers' 
leagues and the disarming of the men belonging to 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 233' 

them, should have been satisfied; and thereupon arose 
the question to what parts of Greece the blockade 
should extend. The mainland was obviously Royalist 
and subject therefore to punishment for royal mis- 
doings; equally clearly Crete, Samos, Chios, Mytilene, 
and some few other islands had declared against the 
king and were immune; but what of all the remain- 
ing islands whose political sympathies were as yet 
unknown? 

The British Intelligence Service, late of Athens, 
was now at Syra in the midst of these islands. It had 
arrived there in force, some seventy strong, I was told, 
looking like a jaded theatrical company en deshabille 
after a long and tempestuous night's journey. It 
seized on the vacant Turkish Consulate for its head- 
quarters, and exposed itself gratuitously to ribald 
mirth by quartering its lady typists in the harem. I 
fear that the management had all along been deficient 
in both humour and common-sense. At Athens its 
secret agents had of late been furnished with a formal 
certificate of their employ, signed by the head of the 
service, to be presented by them in person at the cen- 
tral office of the Royalist police, so that there should 
be no mistake about their identity, and to be counter- 
signed there and stamped. It sounds incredible, does 
it not? but I have seen two such certificates, one of 
them issued to an ex-spy of Sultan Hamid, who had 
also spent six months in German service. But the 
farce did not end even there; believe it if you can, 
doubt it if you must, but it is true; not only was a 
certificate issued, but a brassard too, which the agent 
might wear to protect him from arrest when breaking 
the Greek law on British account. Gott in Himmel! 



234 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

even a Prussian's sense of humour would have saved 
him from protecting thus his secret agents. 

Would that there had been no other deficiencies ! 
The task of winning Syra and the surrounding islands 
to the Venizelist cause needed little but patient and 
good-humoured cajolery; yet — suffice it to say that 
there were episodes not easily forgiven. Let me sketch 
rather how the islands should have been won, since I 
say the task was easy. 

Syra itself had furnished the example. The 
iEgean Intelligence Bureau — for so, if I remember 
rightly, the Athens Service now styled itself — had 
brought much good money into the capital Hermou- 
polis, so christened by the vote of its inhabitants 
after the god of the market-place whose votaries 
they are. So Syra was quite willing to be Anglo- 
phile and Venizelist, and, since it is the shipping 
centre of the .ZEgean islands, and was moreover 
reminded of British naval power by the presence of 
a cruiser sent from Suda, was quite equally unwilling 
to be blockaded. "The Conversion of Syra" was in 
fact a comedy which had been played unrehearsed by 
the shrewd traders of Hermoupolis, without much 
prompting from their British visitors, and with no 
stage-properties provided by the British save only a 
cruiser in the background. With a small cast of 
British actors the comedy could have been so easily 
adapted to other islands, — as "The Conversion of 
Andros," or "of Paros" or "of Tenos" or of what 
you will; native talent would quickly have taken its 
cue and played up to the leading performers. One 
officer and a trustworthy interpreter could have sus- 
tained the chief parts; and a trawler could have 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 235 

replaced the cruiser in these provincial theatres. Here, 
in outline, is one such comedy. 

ACT I. Scene i. — Enter an interpreter, disguised 
as an honest Greek merchant forced by the exigencies 
of the blockade to meditate arrangements for smug- 
gling. He climbs onto the quay at the back of the 
stage, having just arrived in a caique depicted at 
anchor in the still waters of the harbour which forms 
the background. He observes two cafes to right and 
left — right for the Venizelist sheep and left for the 
Royalist goats. Their respective politics he has al- 
ready learnt from the boatman who rowed him ashore. 
He approaches the Venizelist cafe, and, in response to 
the many inquiries touching his name, native place, age, 
family, and business, hints that full enlightenment 
would be better deferred, and lets it be understood 
merely that he is a shrewd and honest merchant who, 
foreseeing trouble, such as that now threatened by the 
blockade, or the possible outbreak of war, has hoarded 
considerable quantities of food-stuffs, and is now in a 
position to avert the starvation of the islanders on 
more reasonable terms than any of his trade rivals. 
"The risks, the very grave risks," he adds, "of 
running the blockade must be taken into account; 
insurance against seizure is out of the question, owing 
to the publicity involved; the possible loss of one 
cargo must be compensated by the enhanced price of 
goods safely delivered; but even so my prices are 
moderate, extremely moderate." Inquiries for par- 
ticular food-stuffs now begin, and he quotes prices 
astoundingly extortionate. Attempts are made to 
bargain, but he remains obdurate. With starvation 



236 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

so imminent, he maintains, and the risks of running 
the blockade so high, his quotations are moderate, 
extremely moderate. He then stands them an aperitif 
all round before they disperse for dejeuner, and, in 
wishing them bon appetit, assures them that, if they de- 
sire to make provision for satisfying their bon appetit 
in the future, he is very much at their disposal, and 
always to be found during working hours at the cafe. 

Scene 2. — Siestas are over, and the soi-disant honest 
merchant is seated again in the cafe, in a corner of the 
verandah, a position which will both favour quiet con- 
fidential talk and command a view of the Royalist cafe 
across the way. One by one some half-dozen leading 
Venizelists saunter in, and, as if in courtesy towards a 
stranger, join the merchant in his corner. They order 
drinks in turn for the party, and will not hear of his 
paying for one, and, while this hospitable entertain- 
ment proceeds, they ask him what his quotations 
would be if they themselves were taking the risk of 
running the blockade or — in strict confidence, of 
course, but they had foregone their siesta in view of 
the gravity of his news, and had had a little private 
conference among themselves, just the half-dozen of 
them — or, then, if for any political reason the blockade 
should not be enforced against their island. 

The worthy merchant is puzzled. "I am no 
politician," he says, "but I admire Mr. Venizelos, 
who is a straight man, like myself, and can foresee too 
the opportunities of politics, as well as I have foreseen 
those of commerce. But what political reason could 
exempt your island from the blockade? You have 
not broken away from the king's government, have 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 237 

you, and declared for Venizelos? I gathered that 
yonder cafe across the way was Royalist, and that the 
Mayor and the Chief of Police and the schoolmaster 
all frequented that: some one I was chatting with told 
me so." 

"Aye," says one of the party, tapping the side of 
his nose with his forefinger the while, to indicate his 
acumen, "aye, but what if we changed our damned 
Mayor and all his clique for good Venizelists like us 
six? If we acknowledged the Provisional Govern- 
ment, as Samos and Chios have done, and were 
therefore not liable to be blockaded, what then?" 

"My quotations," replies the merchant, "moderate, 
extremely moderate, as they are now, would drop 
proportionately to the elimination of risks; you 
would wonder, gentlemen, that any merchant could 
supply you so cheaply. I will cypher it out, and 
give you quotations applicable to such political cir- 
cumstances as you describe. But remember please, 
gentlemen, that I am no politician; I am an 
honest trader ready to adapt myself to any political 
changes. As a man, I offer you my sympathy and 
promise to respect your confidence; as a trader, and 
a stranger withal in your island, I must not be impli- 
cated in any local disturbance. If, for example, you 
should decide to round up your leading opponents 
where they are now sitting in yonder cafe, and lodge 
them in some safe place like this cellar here, or 
aboard some craft in the harbour, you will under- 
stand that I should wish to take no part, and should 
indeed be grateful for any hint which would enable 
me to keep out of the way. Meantime, should any 
of the Royalist gentlemen opposite care to do business 



238 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

with me at the old quotations, you may be sure that 
in my dealings with them I shall respect your con- 
fidence in my own interest no less than in yours. A u 
revoir, gentlemen." 

ACT II. Scene i. — Time, two days later, in the 
forenoon. Scene, the same, save that a British trawler 
is now depicted in the harbour that forms the back- 
ground. Enter a British officer, climbing onto the 
quay as the interpreter had done. Catching sight of 
the interpreter seated outside the right-hand cafe, he 
approaches it casually as if to get a drink, and seating 
himself at one of the tables in front of it, calls to the 
cafe-keeper in language adapted to foreign comprehen- 
sion: "Hi, George, avez-vous bono vino?" The cafe- 
keeper being unversed in that tongue hurries forward 
with a conciliatory smile and a dirty napkin to polish 
the table for so distinguished a guest, demanding in 
his loudest tone, by way of compensating for his un- 
familiar speech, with what he may have the honour of 
serving Monsieur. The honest merchant intervenes 
and offers his services to interpret. 

"Good," says the officer, "you speak English; 
I thought I should have to carry on somehow in 
French. Are you free for the next hour?" and 
proceeds to inform him, for appearances' sake, of 
what he already knows. In return the interpreter 
informs him that a Venizelist movement is already 
arranged, and can be carried through by noon. He 
then leaves the officer to have his drink, and explains 
to the other occupants of the cafe, that the British 
officer has been sent to enforce the blockade, and 
wishes formally to notify the Mayor of the fact. 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 239 

They beg the interpreter to defer the visit to the 
Mayor till noon, making what excuse he can. The 
interpreter obliges them by bidding one of them make 
pretence of going to the Mayor's office and returning 
with a message that he is away but is expected back 
at noon. This done, the interpreter informs the 
officer, who disappears for a stroll till that hour. 

Scene 2. — Soon after half-past eleven the leading 
persons of the place begin to assemble in the two 
cafes, to take their aperitif before dejeuner. The 
Venizelist resort is uncommonly full, though one 
leading personage is absent. There is also an unusual 
crowd of loungers on the quay, attracted no doubt by 
the sight of the British trawler. At the Royalist cafe 
the Mayor and the Chief of Police are seated at 
their usual table. Suddenly, as at a signal, there is 
an emeute. The occupants of the Venizelist cafe and 
the loungers on the quay surround the Mayor, the 
Chief of Police, and the other Royalist leaders, and 
bundle them off to the cellar of the Venizelist cafe. 

Into the centre of the stage emerges now a figure 
who has taken no part in the commotion; he it is 
who, tapping his nose with his forefinger, had acutely 
suggested changing the damned Mayor for one of the 
Venizelist sort; he carries now a roll of paper in his 
hand, and mounts a platform improvised as if by magic 
from the tables of the Royalist cafe (those from the 
Venizelist cafe might get broken, which would be a 
pity). 

"Long live the Mayor!" shouts the crowd. The 
new Mayor bows, and unrolls his paper amid a breath- 
less pause, broken only by the muffled imprecations 



240 TALES OF vEGEAN INTRIGUE 

of his predecessor now in the cellar. He reads a 
resolution: "Liberated from the unconstitutional 
oppression of a Germanophile tyrant and of his 
sycophantic minions by the unanimous choice and 
act of her enlightened and liberal-minded sons, this 
island hereby declares her accession to the cause 
championed by Venizelos" — the rest is drowned in 
applause, which causes the British officer, now return- 
ing from his stroll, to salute in some embarrassment, 
surprised at his sudden popularity. 

The Mayor descends more rapidly than gracefully 
and approaches him. Through the medium of the 
interpreter he apologises for having been busy else- 
where all the forenoon, but, hearing that the officer 
desired to see him at noon, he has hastened down to 
the quay, he says, to save Monsieur the trouble of 
coming to his office. As for the mission on which 
Monsieur has come, he thinks there is some mistake. 
The island is Venizelist, as he himself, Mayor of the 
town and a staunch Venizelist, can vouch. He begs 
Monsieur to do him the honour of lunching with him 
at the cafe here and now, so that they may discuss 
further the situation. 

Dejeuner on a lavish scale has, it appears, been 
already ordered, and they take their places. The 
little affair of the blockade having been settled, and 
several loyal toasts drunk, the Mayor says he has a 
favour to ask. The officer may have observed certain 
sounds issuing from the cellar: the fact is the town 
has no proper jail, and confined in the cellar are certain 
fanatical Royalists recently concerned in an emeute 
which disturbed the peace of the town. If the officer 
is returning to Syra, will he be good enough to 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 241 

convey them in his trawler and hand them over for 
imprisonment there? The officer consents, provided 
that they are on board in half an hour, when he must 
sail. The merchant, who has served as interpreter, 
makes bold to ask for a passage too, offering his 
assistance in explaining the situation on arrival; and 
his request is granted. Exit the officer accompanied 
by the merchant. 

The Mayor calls some loungers from the quay to 
transfer the prisoners from the cellar to the trawler, 
while he and his chief confederates stand watching. 
A thought strikes one of them: "Mr. Mayor," he 
says, "we have let the merchant go without learning 
his name and address or his revised quotations." 
"Let him go," says the Mayor, "he was an extor- 
tionate rogue, and tried to bleed us; but we were too 
sharp for him, and he has served our purpose; even if 
he gives us away to that English officer, whom I bluffed 
so nicely, the officer clearly must keep quiet for his 
own sake." 

Some such tactics should I have recommended for 
the vEgean Islands, which contained a population 
largely Venizelist in sympathy and needing only the 
stimulus of the blockade to make them face the facts 
and declare for the Provisional Government. But 
Cerigo (or Cythera, for the ancient name has been 
revived) presented a different problem. Unlike the 
^Egean Islands, it lies close to the mainland, to which, 
by trade, by cable, and for administrative purposes, it 
is attached. The blockade of the Peloponnese, the 
most Royalist part of all Greece, involved the blockade 
of Cerigo, through which island, by means of a short 



242 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

voyage to or from the Malea promontory under cover 
of night, there would otherwise have been an open 
passage of traffic. 

But there were reasons why I was not content that 
Cerigo should merely be left in Royalist hands and be 
blockaded. During the summer and autumn of 191 6 
reports had reached me, and had been duly forwarded 
to the proper quarters, that the channel between 
Cerigo and the mainland was a favourite resort of 
enemy submarines. They could lie on the surface in 
sheltered water on one side or other of the island's 
northern point, and needed merely an agent or two 
ashore to keep a look-out for any of the French 
trawlers which had the duty of patrolling that coast, 
and to signal a timely warning. They were reported 
even to receive supplies sent down the coast from 
Gytheion at the head of the gulf, and to take them 
on board, safely screened by the island from the obser- 
vation of any ships to the southward. 

The significance of these reports was enhanced by 
the fact that during the latter half of 1916 there was 
no point in our area, and few in the whole Mediter- 
ranean, where submarines were so frequently sighted 
as at a point some fifty or sixty miles west of the 
Cerigo Channel (the channel, that is, between Cerigo 
and the western end of Crete). At that point 
approximately all traffic between the Western Mediter- 
ranean and Salonica or Alexandria or other eastern 
bases, whatever its previous route, was bound to 
converge, and our losses by submarine attack in that 
neighbourhood had been considerable. The French, 
who were responsible for a trawler-patrol in that area, 
had presumably insufficient craft at their disposal for 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 243 

the purpose : even up to the end of the war the 
Mediterranean was never adequately supplied with 
ships for patrol and escort in those vast waters, and 
every service was in the nature of a makeshift. At 
any rate no effective steps were taken to deal with this 
danger-spot, and personally I felt convinced that 
Cerigo was serving as a base for enemy submarines 
commanding the main artery of Mediterranean traffic. 

Finally in December a fisher-lad was sent over 
from Cerigo by certain British sympathisers there, to 
give me the details of definite occurrences which he and 
others had seen with their own eyes, in particular the 
landing of two officers from a German submarine on 
the mainland opposite the north end of Cerigo, and 
their visit to an isolated house tenanted by an enemy 
agent (his name and doings had been ascertained), 
who travelled frequently between that spot and 
Gytheion on German business. Other sightings of 
submarines too were circumstantially recorded with 
such detail as convinced me that for once I was 
receiving first-hand and accurate information. Neither 
was the lad even seeking remuneration. 

A day or two later I saw Mr. Tsirimokos, the rep- 
resentative of the Provisional Government in charge 
of Crete. I was on terms of intimate friendship and 
confidence with him, and his hearty and capable co- 
operation in anything that affected the common cause 
of the Allies was always assured. I asked him what 
he knew of the present situation in Cerigo. He told 
me first that, in spite of the blockade, caiques from 
Cerigo were getting through to Crete for the purpose 
of buying food and were doubtless obtaining some. 
This I already knew, for it was by one such caique 



2±± TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

that the fisher-lad who brought me news had arrived. 
But he told me further that Cerigo, though in Royalist 
hands, was largely Venizelist in sympathy, and more- 
over strongly pro-British too; this for the reason that 
in old times Cerigo, in spite of its geographical posi- 
tion, had ranked as one of the Ionian Islands, for- 
merly in British possession and bestowed by Gladstone 
on Greece. From that time to this, it appears, a pro- 
British sentiment has been strong in the island, and 
quite a number of the inhabitants still claim British 
nationality. 

I suggested to the Governor that we should find 
means to detach the island from the mainland and 
attach it to Crete, setting up an effective Venizelist 
regime and keeping it supplied with food from our 
Cretan resources. I explained the naval importance 
of the matter as I viewed it; and he was able to 
confirm my information concerning enemy submarines 
from yet another source. We agreed that the con- 
quest of Cerigo was a desirable project. 

The main difficulty was that the island lay in the 
French zone, and to ask our Vice-Admiral's permission 
for the expedition would be to invite a snub. He 
might regard such a request, in view of the reasons 
which must be assigned for it, as a reflection on his 
own naval vigilance, and would certainly feel it a 
delicate matter to communicate the proposal to the 
French without offending them. It would obviously 
be best to act first and to report afterwards. This the 
Governor fully recognised, and was quite willing to 
accept any responsibility convenient to me for the 
inception of the enterprise. We agreed that he should 
send to the S.N.O. a formal request for the use of a 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 245 

trawler for the conveyance of certain detachments of 
gendarmerie etc. to Cerigo. We had often obliged 
him in the matter of similar transport to various parts 
of Crete, and a request of the sort would naturally 
be granted. 

The details were easily arranged. The numbers, 
I said, which the trawler could conveniently carry, 
especially if bad weather were encountered, must not 
exceed two hundred. Some ten tons of flour, we 
agreed, could be sent as well, for distribution among 
our adherents in Cerigo, and as a foretaste of future 
food supplies when the Venizelist regime should be 
established and the blockade raised. The passage 
from Suda to Cerigo should be by night, in order both 
to evade observation by any French patrol and to 
effect a surprise in the island itself. The landing, 
weather permitting, should take place at Pelagia Bay 
on the north-east coast, which was only some two 
hours distant from the inland capital, Potamos; for 
Kapsali, the usual port, at the southern end, besides 
being farther from the capital, might also have a police 
force strong enough to cause trouble during dis- 
embarkation. Finally provision must be made for the 
public meeting which would have to be summoned as 
soon as the capital was occupied and the Royalist ad- 
ministration dispossessed. A formal resolution should 
be prepared, to be read to the meeting and carried by 
acclamation; a picture of Venizelos and some flags 
would add effect to the appearance of the troops; and 
a prospective Governor, provided with an official seal, 
stamped paper, and what not, should accompany the 
expedition, disposed to accept nomination, by public 
acclaim of the same meeting, to that responsible post. 



246 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

And so it came to pass that one evening early in 
January 19 17 detachments of no soldiers and 50 
gendarmes, with flour, picture, flags, Governor, seal, 
and other appurtenances, under the leadership of 
Mr. Karapanos, the Governor's secretary, embarked 
in a trawler at Suda Bay, and set forth for the con- 
quest of Cerigo. A considerable sea was running out- 
side, and their first experience of a trawler was far 
from comfortable; but a landing was effected, under 
some difficulties of weather but without opposition, 
just as dawn broke, at Pelagia Bay. 

There was no romantic adventure thereafter, I 
grieve to say. It was singularly prosaic. While the 
men were recovering from the tossing of the night, 
their leader, having ascertained locally that there were 
no troops in the island, and only a handful of police 
in the capital, had resort to the telephone, and having 
called up the Mayor, told him that he was marching in 
force on the town and demanded the surrender of the 
leading Royalist officials. Mr. Strategos (i.e. "Gen- 
eral"), for all his military name, recognised that 
surrender was the only course open to him, and, when 
the expedition reached the capital, he and some eight 
or nine others were waiting to make their submission 
and hand over their offices; which done, they were 
marched down to the coast and put aboard the trawler 
for conveyance to Crete. 

A public meeting was at once called. The lib- 
erators of the island with their flags and the picture 
of Venizelos received an ovation. Cheers were raised 
for England and the ten tons of flour. The resolution 
was carried unanimously, and the Governor nominated 
and installed. 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 247 

The first act of the new Governor was to order the 
organisation of an efficient coast-guard service to watch 
for submarines and to report them when possible to 
any French trawlers or other vessels in those waters. 
In other respects the island resumed its normal life; 
and, when a week later another British trawler arrived 
with a further consignment of food-stuffs, the re- 
organisation of the island was so far complete, that 
Mr. Karapanos was able to return to Crete. At a 
dinner which he gave on his name-day, the Greek 
Epiphany, a few days later, I had the honour of 
introducing the toast of the evening by a mock-heroic 
Greek ballad chronicling his exploits as Conqueror 
of Cerigo ; and we flattered ourselves, prematurely as 
it proved, that Cerigo would no more trouble us. 

PART II.— EVADING THE CONSEQUENCES 

The Vice-Admiral was not wholly enthusiastic 
about this expedition when it was reported to him. 
He appeared to think that we had been too accom- 
modating to the Governor of Crete in lending him 
a trawler without first assuring ourselves that she 
would not be put to any irregular or compromising 
use; and he made it reasonably clear that he would 
not have sanctioned an excursion into the French 
zone, had his permission been previously asked. 
Seeing however that the thing was done, he sanctioned 
a weekly trawler-service between Crete and Cerigo 
to carry mails and food-stuffs. 

But then the trouble began in earnest. Just at 
the time of our expedition, the Allies had been 
demanding of the Greek Government the withdrawal 



248 TALES OF ^GEAN INTRIGUE 

of their troops from certain areas, chiefly in North 
Greece; and the Greek Government, fearing that 
the withdrawal of Royalist troops might be followed 
by a Venizelist rising in some districts, had negotiated 
terms. A pact had been formulated in respect of 
Royalist and Venizelist territory, but the precise 
conditions of it I have never been able to learn. The 
Greek Government certainly undertook to withdraw 
its troops from the specified areas; but whether the 
Provisional Government undertook in turn not to 
occupy any more Royalist territory whatsoever, or 
merely not to occupy any Royalist territory evacuated 
by the troops under this pact, was a matter, to us at 
any rate, of uncertainty. In the former case the 
seizure of Cerigo was a violation of the agreement; 
in the latter case it was legitimate, for no Royalist 
troops had been withdrawn from the island. There 
was some doubt also as to the date at which the agree- 
ment came into force, but, so far as I could discover 
afterwards, our expedition had been about twelve 
hours too late. At the time we had known nothing 
about any such agreement projected or made. 

In the upshot however the Greek Government 
lodged a protest against our action, and the Allied 
Legations being unable to resolve the point in dispute 
— there must, I think, have been some real ambiguity 
in the phrasing of the agreement — referred the 
question ultimately to the Rome Conference, where 
the Allied Prime Ministers were sitting in council. 

It is worth noting that we, the naval authorities 
on the spot by whose co-operation Cerigo was occupied, 
were never asked by the Legation in Athens, the 
Foreign Office, or any other authority, whether Cerigo 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 249 

possessed from our point of view any special naval 
importance. Just as in greater matters the Foreign 
Office nullified naval work, as by releasing for German 
use cotton and copper and other essentials of warfare 
which the Northern blockade had held up, or jeop- 
ardised all Allied shipping in the Mediterranean for 
the first two years of the war by allowing the Eastern 
Telegraph Company to transmit enemy messages, so in 
this smaller matter a decision was taken without any 
question being put to the naval authorities on the spot 
as to whether this island, lying alongside the main 
route of Mediterranean traffic, had any naval im- 
portance. 

It may be of course that the agreement was so 
clear that the Rome Conference could but reach one 
decision; but, in that case, what was it that had 
puzzled the united brains of the Legations in Athens, 
and made them refer the question to their superiors 
at home? It may equally well be that the Rome 
Conference, having found the island of Cerigo on a 
map, said, "This is a very small bit of territory to 
make a fuss about, and a very long way from Salonica ; 
let the Royalists have it if they want it." But, 
whatever the cause, the decision was against us, and 
the first intimation which reached us that any question 
about Cerigo had even been raised was an order from 
the Vice-Admiral to withdraw the Venizelist forces, 
which served as garrison and coast-guard, and to re- 
store our Royalist prisoners to their own island. 

Well, orders are orders, and must be obeyed in the 
letter and in the spirit — or at least in one of the two. 
On this occasion I preferred the letter, for "the letter 
killeth" and I was minded to kill this scheme if I could 



250 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

compass it. I make no apology for my frame of mind. 
I had seen survivors from torpedoed troopships 
brought into Suda; I had seen the captain of a vessel, 
which had done fine work in saving them, shaken 
in nerve and temporarily broken by the sights he had 
witnessed; I had seen, or been notified by others who 
had seen, the dead bodies of those whom he could not 
save washed ashore for weeks afterwards; and I was 
convinced that that havoc was worked by submarines 
whose base was Cerigo. I was not prepared to 
acquiesce in facilitating the recrudescence of those 
horrors at the bidding of the Rome Conference or 
any one else. 

How then to defeat the purposes of higher 
authority? Argument would plainly be useless. I 
could not for example ask the S.N.O. to wire to the 
Vice-Admiral, "My Intelligence Officer disapproves of 
the decision of the Rome Conference and of your or- 
ders, for the reason that Cerigo, as previously re- 
ported, serves as a German submarine-base" : his 
answer would have been distinctly curt, if not 
opprobrious. To argue with your superior officers 
is only to encourage them in the use of bad language, 
and nothing is gained. If you are convinced that an 
order given is thoroughly mischievous, you should 
prepare to carry it out without protest, but discover 
in the course of doing so a new and embarrassing 
fact which you feel obliged to submit to the superior 
judgment of your captain or admiral, in case he may 
wish to vary his orders in any particular. If the 
fait accompli fails, as it was failing at Cerigo, try the 
effect of the fait imprevu. 

I could see only one such new fact — one not 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 251 

beyond our contrivance, if the Governor of the island 
would work with me ; and when I went to see him and 
to report, as in duty bound, the orders we had 
received for the withdrawal of his forces, I laid my 
suggestion frankly before him. He was as indignant 
as I had been at this official blunder, and was quite 
ready to circumvent our orders and frustrate their 
execution. 

It might happen, I suggested, that even though 
we withdrew the troops and the police, the islanders 
would still maintain their new regime and their loyalty 
to the Venizelist cause, and consequently of course 
would be exempt from the blockade and entitled to 
continue receiving food-supplies from Crete. It 
might be that their feelings would carry them so far 
that they would be prepared to have recourse to arms 
to prevent the return of the Royalist prisoners now in 
Canea jail — provided of course that they possessed 
arms or acquired them in time. It might well be that 
some time would elapse before all the troops could be 
brought away: we could not spare a trawler more than 
once a week; there was no cable from Crete to 
Cerigo by which to send word that the troops should 
be concentrated ready for embarkation; and at this 
time of the year the weather was so bad round Cerigo, 
that it must be uncertain which, if any, harbour would 
be accessible from week to week; and, if orders were 
left after the first trip for a concentration next week 
at a given harbour, it might easily happen that, when 
the day came, the trawler could only touch elsewhere. 
It might in fact take three or four weeks to execute 
our orders. 

Meantime the Royalist prisoners in Canea should 



252 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

be acquainted with the decision, and might perhaps 
be released from jail and live in the town under 
police supervision only, until the island of Cerigo was 
clear of troops and open for their return. In their 
comparative liberty they would naturally get to know 
the latest news of Cerigo : the returning troops would 
bring tidings of the enthusiasm of the islanders for 
the cause of Venizelos; rumours might even spread 
that the people there had somehow armed themselves 
to resist any Royalist incursion from the mainland or 
elsewhere; and a few discreet persons, having made 
the acquaintance of our liberated Royalists, might 
congratulate them on their courage in risking a return 
to an island obviously in a state of political ferment. 
Possibly the Royalists would even reconsider then 
their own wishes, and petition us not to send them 
back. If such a petition were received, and if we 
ourselves also had strong grounds for believing that 
the rumours about the arming of the islanders were 
correct — why, it would be sheer murder to put the 
Royalists ashore there without first reporting this 
strange development and asking if our instructions 
still held good. 

But as regards those rumours of arming, we could 
not afford to rely on bluff only. The islanders must 
be armed as against a possible expedition of Royalist 
troops or police from the mainland to take over the 
control of the island as we withdrew from it. Our 
first detachment withdrawn might of course come 
away in a hurry leaving their arms in the local depot 
to be brought over when the evacuation was completed; 
but it looked as if we must press on with a bit of 
gun-running. 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 253 

The Governor saw no objection to this scheme 
nor any flaw in the conception of it. The method of 
the gun-running was the main point requiring con- 
sideration. Our own trawler had obvious advantages 
inasmuch as it would not be liable to search by any 
French patrol; but though you can stow ammunition 
and revolvers in sacks of flour with reasonable security, 
a rifle is an awkward object to pack in that way. So 
we decided to use the trawler for the smaller stuff 
only; that could be despatched at once, and from 
week to week as required; there would undoubtedly 
be some few rifles available in the island — those of 
the disbanded Royalist police for example — and in 
view of a possible expedition from the mainland for the 
re-conquest of Cerigo, we deemed the matter urgent. 
For the next week or two some of the sacks of flour 
dispatched by the Governor for the sustenance of 
Cerigo were heavier than others, but no one knew 
this except a faithful merchant of Canea who accom-' 
panied them and supervised their distribution on 
arrival. 

I do not know to what penalties an officer is liable 
for illicit gun-running in one of His Majesty's 
trawlers. I doubt whether any naval code deals with 
that specific offence. But detection was very im- 
probable: the impudence of the action was its best 
safeguard. 

The rifles went by caique in oil-drums. Large 
iron drums, tall enough to take a package of rifles, are 
commonly used for the export of oil. They had two 
advantages for our purpose. First, if the caique were 
searched by a French patrol, and the number of oil- 
drums were found to tally with the manifest (which 



254 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

was in perfect order), the odds were a hundred to one 
that the search-party would not broach the drums and 
sample their contents : it is a troublesome business, as 
I know from my experience as boarding-officer. And 
secondly, the drums could be floated ashore anywhere, 
and there would be no need to land them at any 
particular harbour and pass them through the Cus- 
toms. A certain measure of secrecy was desirable 
until the rifles were in the right hands ; and indeed the 
manifest, I believe, named a destination other than 
Cerigo, which might be held to be blockaded. The 
preparation of this consignment occupied some time, 
as one end of the drums had to be altered for the in- 
sertion of non-liquid contents; but in the end delivery 
was made without incident. 

Meantime the Vice-Admiral's orders were being 
obeyed in the letter. The first trip to Cerigo in quest 
of the Venizelist troops was superintended personally 
by my fellow Intelligence Officer, who was able to 
report on his return that the weather had been very 
heavy, and that it had been impossible to lie at anchor 
off Pelagia long enough to await a general concentra- 
tion; he had therefore brought back some thirty or 
forty men only, and had warned the others to be 
ready the next week. But the second trip too 
encountered heavy weather from another quarter, and, 
Pelagia Bay being too exposed, the trawler made 
Kapsdli in the south instead, and, having landed the 
mail and the sacks of flour, was unable to wait for the 
majority of the soldiers and gendarmes to march 
right across the island, and came away with a few 
only on board. Indeed for four successive weeks 
the same sort of trouble continued: January and 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 255 

February are always tempestuous months in those 
waters. 

Those however of the Venizelists who returned 
spoke highly of the enthusiasm of the islanders. 
They were even organising and arming their own 
coast-guard in lieu of the gendarmerie who were being 
withdrawn. Moreover an eloquent protest against 
the decision of the Allies to surrender the island into 
the hands of its Royalist minority was influentially 
signed, and formally forwarded to us, for transmission 
to the proper authority. 

Then one day two of the Royalist prisoners, now at 
large in Canea, obtained permission from the police to 
call on me at Suda. They represented that, from 
what they had heard, they judged that popular feeling 
in Cerigo was not favourable to their political views, 
and that their return to that island might be attended 
by a certain danger. They asked in fact to be allowed 
to proceed to the mainland instead, and, in view of 
the blockade, by a British trawler if possible. 

I replied in an official manner that their request 
should be conveyed to the Vice-Admiral, but that 
our present orders were to repatriate the whole party 
at an early date, adding that for myself I felt doubtful 
whether the Vice-Admiral would sanction the diversion 
of a trawler to the mainland for the convenience of two 
members of the party, when the rest were destined for 
Cerigo. Thereupon they pleaded for some delay at 
least, and protested that at present their lives would 
not be safe there. I replied that I would represent 
that possibility on their behalf to the Vice-Admiral, 
and, if they wished it, would even go so far as to add 
my personal assurance that, as far as I could ascertain, 



256 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

the danger was genuinely serious. They were very 
grateful, and departed. 

I did not report to the Vice-Admiral at once, for 
there was a good chance now that the leaven of mis- 
giving would work in the minds of others of the 
party; and obviously my two visitors would point 
out to the others that, if they were unanimous in 
desiring to go to the mainland, the chance of being 
conveyed there by trawler would be much improved. 
I was not mistaken. Two days later I received a 
formal petition, signed by all but one of them, 
praying for the indulgence of a passage to any port of 
the mainland, but not to Cerigo. 

This was good enough. A translation of their 
petition, as also of the protest from the leading 
inhabitants of Cerigo, together with a report on the 
manifestation of strong Venizelist sympathies in that 
island and the possibility of a resort to violence, was 
forwarded to the Vice-Admiral, with a request for 
further instructions for dealing with the new situation. 
The Vice-Admiral replied that the Royalists were to 
be kept in Crete pending further orders; and the 
question of the political status of Cerigo was once 
more referred home to the Four Powers. 

In the course of March the new decision reached 
us. Cerigo was not permitted to come under the 
Provisional Government; but, since it had revolted 
against Royalist authority, and would justly resent 
being placed again under its former regime, it was 
constituted temporarily an independent state with 
power to elect its own President, and to settle its own 
administration. Incidentally too we were authorised 
to accede to our Royalists' petition for a passage to the 



THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 257 

mainland, and a trawler dumped them accordingly at 
the nearest point. 

In Cerigo a public meeting was once more called, 
and the Governor whom we had provided was asked 
to accept the office of President. He was a native of 
the island, in sympathy with its present political 
sentiments, and no better appointment could have 
been made. As for the administration, the new 
President adopted in its entirety the system approved 
by his predecessor, the Governor. All that the latest 
decision of the Allied Powers really necessitated was 
the cutting of a new seal and a changed heading for 
the official paper; and this need could be temporarily 
satisfied at small cost by the purchase of two rubber 
stamps. 

The new state also, but of its own initiative, 
designed and ordered its own postage stamps, but 
these did not arrive in time for use before the Royalist 
regime of the mainland ended with the deposition of 
Constantine, and the independent state of Cerigo was 
reabsorbed in reunited Greece. 

During the three months that the state existed, its 
internal administration was marked by the maintenance 
of an efficient coast-guard on the look-out for sub- 
marines abusing the hospitality of its territorial 
waters, while its foreign policy was inspired by 
benevolence and friendship towards the Governor and 
people of Crete, against whose imports of food-stuffs 
no hostile tariff-barrier was erected. 

Thus then the supreme authorities of the Allied 
Powers, acknowledging no defeat in their arrange- 
ments for the future of Cerigo but merely a strategic 
change of front, had the last word; while we, their 



258 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

humble servants, knowing that by our use of certain 
byways we had outflanked their first position and 
forced that change of front, were content with our 
work. For our stratagem was justified by the issue : 
from the time of the conquest of Cerigo the sightings 
of enemy submarines at the approaches to that 
dangerous channel had shown a marked decrease; 
and towards the end of the war I learnt too that the 
little island, for reasons which could not have been 
other than naval, had possessed an interest for the 
German High Command. A White Book issued 
by the restored Venizelist Government contained the 
telegraphic correspondence of the late royal household 
and its ministers with the Kaiser and his military 
advisers; and therein, under date, 13th January 
19 17, is a despondent telegram from Queen Sophia 
to Falkenhausen, which ends: "Cerigo has been 
occupied by the insurgents and other surprises may be 
in store for us." There were indeed; but the last of 
the surprises which I can credit to my own contriv- 
ance was this conquest of Cerigo. 



APPENDIX 

CAVIARE TO THE GENERAL 

The ballad and the pamphlet here appended will be 
Greek to the many and of interest to the few only. 

The gist of the pamphlet has already been given 
in Part ii. of Chapter V, and to translate it is beyond 
my power. It was composed in Greek for Greeks, 
and, so as to encourage them to read it, was given the 
form of a skit on that linguistic question which never 
fails to rouse interest and indeed acrimony in the 
Greek breast, the conflict between the "popular" and 
the "refined" idioms of their country. Politics and 
religion, patriotism and snobbery, all become in- 
volved in this endlessly debated question, and even 
blood was spilt over it in Athens some years ago 
when some bold spirit issued a "popular" version of 
the Gospels. A pamphlet therefore conceived as a 
skit on this controversy might attract attention where 
the more serious propaganda, issued in impeccably 
"refined" style, failed of its primary object — namely, 
to be read; but for the same reason the pamphlet 
defies translation into a language where no such 
rivalry of conflicting idioms exists. 

The ballad I have ventured to translate. My 
rendering retains the metre and, in some part, the 
alliteration and verbal plays of the original; but it 
necessarily lacks such humour as the original derives 

259 



260 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

from borrowed or parodied lines and cliches of Greek 
popular poetry; it does not claim to be more than 
synthetic caviare. 

THE CONQUEST OF CERIGO 

"What is afoot on yonder shore? What errand hath 

yon trawler 
Wherein they stow that freight of sheep, and sacks of 

flour, and muskets?" 
"Lo ! Karapanos now hath come, and forth his craft 

will carry 
Full three-score Yeomen of the Watch, true lions 

from out Canea, 
And men-at-arms five-score and ten, the falcon-breed 

of Suda, 
With fifteen fatlings of the flock and flour in ten-ton 

measure." 
"Haste ye aboard, my lads," he cries, "come haste 

ye your embarking! 
Sea-sick or no, my lads, heave ho ! for Cythera we're 

sailing; 
My sword shall vanquish Potamo, and fire consume 

Kapsali, 
And all the Cytheraean land to smithereens be shat- 
tered." 
He posts his fatlings in the fore, astern he posts his 

comrades, 
He spreads his flour-sacks in the hold, and lays him 

down to slumber. 
Ah! terribly the storm doth rage, and buffets sore 

the trawler; 



APPENDIX 261 

They vomit once, they vomit twice, they vomit times 

past number; 
Pallid goes Pericles ashore, pallid go all his com- 
rades. 
And lo ! a bird, a noisome bird, espied their sorry 

suff'rings, 
And sped Sir Marshall for to find, and speak to him 

a message : 
"Rouse thee, Sir Marshall, give me heed, and rouse 

thy doughty warriors; 
Lo ! Karapanos now hath come, and from his ship 

pour shoreward 
Full three-score Yeomen of the Watch, false curs 

from out Canea, 
And men-at-arms five-score and ten, the viper-spawn 

of Suda, 
With fifteen fatlings of the flock and flour in ten-ton 

measure, 
That sword may vanquish Potamo and fire consume 

Kapsali 
And all the Cytheraean land to smithereens be shat- 
tered. 
But tempest-tossed were they and sick; I spied their 

sorry suff'rings; 
Pallid and haggard is their mien, sore empty be their 

stomachs. 
Up then, I say, be not afraid, up, that thou may'st 

o'erwhelm them 
Ere from their flour they bake them bread, ere they 

may roast their fatlings, 
And eat and gather heart again, like lions full-fed 

and lusty." 



262 TALES OF AEGEAN INTRIGUE 

Yet vainly doth the bird forewarn, forearmed is 
Karapanos; 

Fourfold his eyes, not twain alone, quick to foresee 
his peril. 

Forward he goes, forward he goes, he smites, he smites 
with fury — 

But, mark, 'tis to the 'phone he goes, the bell that 
feels his fury. 

"Number, please." "Marshall is the name, two, 
number two, Kapsali." 

"Hullo, who's there?" "I, Pericles Photios 
Karapanos. 

A thousand men-at-arms have I, ten thousand valiant 
comrades, 

And countless sacks of bread withal and full five- 
hundred fatlings, — 

The bread in loaves all ready-baked, the fatlings 
ready-roasted, — 

Whereof my lions may eat their fill, and sally forth 
to battle. 

Their swords shall vanquish Potamo and fire con- 
sume Kapsali, 

And all the Cytheraean land to smithereens be shat- 
tered. 

Bestir thee then, make speed to come and do me 
due obeisance, 

And greet with reverential kiss the picture of our 
Leader." 

And so, quick march, out Marshall goes, by quicker 
wit out-marshalled. 



APPENDIX 263 



TO IIAP2IMO TflN KT©HPftN 

" Tl rpe%ei arrjv dxpoyiaXid ; *t Kavovv to Kapdfit, 

onov o~Tpv[iovovv rd aaKKid, Tapvid, rh /capvo<f>v\\ia ; " 

" 6 Kapairdvos e<j)$a<r€ Kal 0k vd ^eKivrfcrj 

ft i^fjVTa %a)po<f>v\aica<}, XavuoTtfca Xeovrdpia, 

fi* ckutov Sitca dpfxarccikoix;, rfj<$ HovBas rh ge^Te'pLa, 

fie Sifca rovvov? akevpo Kal BeKairevre dpvd/cta." 

" fiaptcapicrdrJTe, (3pe iraiBid, Tpegre ftap/capi<r0f)Te' 

iridvei, Bev iridvei, r) 0d\a<r<ra } era Kvdrjpa Tpaf3ovfie t 

yid vd Tndo~(a tov IIoTafib, vh Ka^co rb KayjrdXi, 

ki oKoKcupa rd Kvdrjpa vd KaraKovpeKidca)." 

/3d£ei TapvaKia tov fiirpoaTd, rd iraWrjKapia V/tro), 

crTpcovet crdysirdpi TaXevpo, real ire^reu vd TtXayidarj. 

a^, <f>ovpTowid%ei (f>o/3epd, KovvieTat, to KapdfSt' 

gepvave fiid, t-epvave Bvb, gepvave Tpet? Kal trevTC 

%ka)(ib<; fSyaivet eg<o 6 HepiKkrj*;, %\a>(id Ta traXhrjKdpia. 

eva irovXl, Kafcb ttovXI, tou? elBe tl TraOalvovv, 

teal irdei vd /3prj to ^TpaTrjyb, irdet vd tov to firjvvarj' 

fl a-rjKov, KaXe fiov ^TpaTrjye, o~r}fca)o~e tov? Xef3evTe<i' 

6 Kapairdvo^ e<f>6aae /cat 6£ vd %e/nrapicdpr} 

ejpjvTa ")(G)po$vXafca<; } XavicoTiica cicvXdiaa, 

ki ktcarbv Be/ca dpfiaTGtXovs, t»?5 SovBa<; Ta (peiBdfcta, 

fie Beica Tovvov<i dXevpo Kal BeKairevre dpvd/cia, 

yid vd TTidaovv tov HoTafib, vd Kavovv to KatydXi, 

Kt oKo/caipa Ta Kvdrjpa vd KaTaKovpektdaovv. 

fid caXevrrjKave iroXv, tou? elBa tl iraOaCvovv, 

kl ej(pvv %\.a)fid Ta ^poo-coira, /cidBeta Kal rd o~TO/id%ia. 

crjKov Xolttov, fir) <Jiof3rj0f)$ f arjKov vd tou? 7rXaKa>o-rj<; 

irplv <f>T€ido-ovv TaXevpo yjrcofil, irpiv ^rjeovve TapvaKta, 

vd <f>dve Kal vd fia^<aj(Tovv t o~dv irayovXa XeovTapLa." 

fid Bev irpo(f)0dvei to 7rovXl, irpoKavei 6 Kapairdvo? 



264 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

tf^et ret fidria riacapa, 0<apet Kd\a rt Tpkyei. 

opfidei puirpoara, opfidet p,irpoara, yrvirdei, yrviraei, fi€ 

toprf — 
fia arb rr]Xi<j>a)VO opfirjo-e, %TU7n)<r€ to kovSovvi. 
" e/t7T/)o?." " 6ek<a to HTparqyb, vov/iepo Bvb, KaijraXt," 
" 7roto? elv avrov ; " " o Ue/ai/eX?)?, o $wt^9 Kapcnrdvos' 
e)(co '%l\iov<s apfMZTcokov? fcal fivpca TraWrjicdpia 
kC dvdpiBpa (rarc/cia tycofil teal TrevTaKoat dpvdicia, — 
^epo-^pevo to yjrcopX, ilrrjfieva koI rdpvaKia, — 
va <f>ave to, Xeovrdpia jm>v, va <j>av f va irokefirjcrovv, 
vet iridaovve rbv IIoTafib, va fedtyovv to KatydXi, 
ki okoKaipa tcX KvOrjpa va KaraKovpekidaovv ; 
aivre, \onrbv, Haral^a 'Sa>, irpoaKVvqae p,' ip,iva, 
teal ttjv eiKova <f>i\r]cre rod Kairerhv Ae^yrepij." 
iraipvei rrf arpdra 6 %TpaTi)yb<; /caTaaTparrjyijpAvos. 

Note. — STpaT7ry6j was the name of the Royalist leader in Cerigo, and 
Ae<pripr)i is the popular form of Venizelos* Christian name, Eleutherios. 



APPENDIX 265 

O NIKHTHI TOY TEPMANOY 

BEING A PAMPHLET ISSUED IN CRETE IN SEP- 
TEMBER 1916 IN REPLY TO A PAMPHLET OF 
ENEMY ORIGIN, BY ARISTOTLE P.: 

H NIKH THZ PEPMANIAZ 



ta npoxariA-TOY aiaaotoy 

TOYAIEAMOZ ZEnnEAINAKHZ, TEPMANOZ 
nANOZ ZKYAAKHZ, KPHTIKOZ 



H ZKHNH— TO ATMOflAOION "KE4>I" 



Tepjjtai'os. KaXrjfiipa gov, xvpie. 

KprjTucos- KdXoGTOve. Tov \dyov gov irovOev eiGai ; 

T. *AfjsKo tov Ileipaia' teal Tcopa p,e fiiroXK'qv ttjv 
ev/capio-TTjGiv fiov yievpi%(o fiiriGO) 'arrjv ayKa/jLTrrjT'qv fiov 
pjirarpivra. 

K. 2" iye\ao~e \oiirbv 6 irpaKTopa^ orav e(3ya\e<; to 
elGLTqpio gov • 'o~Tr)v KptjTTj-Trrjyatvofie, 0^1 Vt^ Tepfiavta, 
teal, yict va gov ttw ttjv akrjOeia, Bev elve ev/co\o rb Ta^eiBv 
gtt) 1 epfiavia ovtc air eoco ovtc air ahko fiepos, av oev 
ej£€4? \e<f)Tu va voi/ciaGys inro(3pv%io. 

r. Tl Xe? ; gov §aLvop,ai va $ifmi Tieepiiav6<; ; iyiccb 
el/xai KprjVTiyicb'S ave/caTev. Aafi@dva> t^v TiyJqv va gov 

fnrpOG<£>ip(D TO l'KlGK£'KT'f)pi6v fiov. 

K. EvxapiGT& iro\v. — "TOTAIEAM.0% ZEU- 
JJEAINAKH^, Ka67jyrjTrj<i t^? 'iGTop&tcoavayfcaioTTjros 



266 TALES OF .EGEAN INTRIGUE 

toO iv Aetata AvTOfcparopLK(i}TaT07rave7ricn7]filov." — (.J of a 
a 01 6 ©605' to, %epao~a Bia /wa? oXoKXrjpa teal Bev iTrviyrjtca. 
'AXXa. frpeiret, va, dvrnrp6cr(f>epto Biktj fiov Kapra, yia va 
el fiat t^5 fioBa?, Kal Bev e%ct) irXid. "AXXtj <f>opa $e/3aiW 
orav rjfiovva Kal BrjfioBiBdtTKaXos koX fieyaXoiriavofiovv 
7ro\v 'ctto ypapib fiov, el^a teal Kaprais /cal aXXa KOfiyo- 
tfeyyrjfiara rod crvpfiov, dXX' d<f>ov fi if3ydXave a/rro to 
cr^pXeib teal teari]VTT]cra va fia%eva> craXids/Kovs yia va 
fSydXXco to yjreofit fiov, Xetiret irXia reroia iroXureXeia. 
Kal to ftvofid fiov dtcofiTj iav to tffjevpe airro? 6 Tepfiavo- 
tcprjTitcbs, Xtopk v ^ slvai dXTjOivtos tcpiTitcbs, 6a rStcave yeXoia, 
oircci etcdvave Kal oi /xa^TaSe? fiov. Nal, to 6fioXoya> 
Kal 6 tBtos, Ildvos 2KvXaK7)<i Bev elvai arovBato ovofia, Kal 
Bavfia Qa Tjrave civ Bev fih •napavofiidt ) ave ra iraiBia ak 
" tnravb CKvXaKi." Mwpdfio, erai ra Kara(j>epco) — Mk 
avy-^copelre, Kvpie KaOijyrjrh ZeirireXivaKif dirb ra? iroXXds 
fiov eincTKe'Yei'i rcL? ovola^ ettatxov iv 'Adrjvai? eh rov<t 
BovXevrd? fias, 07tg>? V7roBet£(o Kara irolov rpoirov Beov va 
avTifieraririGtocn ttjv eTrebyovcrav olKOVOfiiKrjv KardaraaLV rod 
Kparovs, (fiaaTopiKd, fiov fyaiverat,, dvaKTtofiai to <r%o\a<F*- 
tikov v<f>o<;), ecrmdijKave — BrjXaBrj KaTTjvaXwOijcrav ra itri- 
cTKeTrTTjpid fiov. *Eav eirLrpeirere ofiaxi, ypd<pco to Bvofid fiov. 

(Wdftvei rrjv rcTe'ir*} rov, (3yd£ei ^apraKi Kal ypdcf>et, 

IQKPATHZ O ANAKP1TAKHZ 

Koxfao&lcpijQ, Kal AievfrvvTrfs 
xov Iv ' HgaxXelq) naXaioaaXiayKoavXlexxTjcylov, 

nqoirfv 5rjfioSi$doxaXoc;.) 
'OpCtrre, Kvpie. 

r. Ei/Kapia-Tcb, Kal tcaipco ttoXv yih rrfv yvcopifiiav aov. 
Kal fidXicrra &e crvyKalpo) dfcof&T} Bwrc eXafie? rb rappos 
vc\ nrapavrrjry^ rrjv vrwTacrKaXiKijV crou evrpav Kal vh 



APPENDIX 267 

tcaray/civecrai et<? epevvav hrto~Tt)fiopticriv PTvarvtctas vrkv 
elfiat eirtcTijfuop tear avTO, elfiat (ptXoXoyieo?, teal vrev 

ryVCOpl^Qi kKUVOV TOP kK&VTOV TTf<i XpVatKrj'i kvUFT^ fir)? TOP 

oiroiov cirovvT&^us' vtroreToy ofixtis ort vdaa iirunrffMf etre 
<f>v<riKT) efoe la-TopiKrj f3acri'£erat iirl tt;? dpdrytcr]?, teal on 
7] igeXtfjt? t&v koj(\lS)v 07tg>9 teal t&p dprpeoirav avfifiop- 
<f>ovrat irpbs tov? dpaytcaCovs tt)? (frvcem vofiovs. 

K. Befialcos, tcvpte. (II ap ay la fiov, fiauropttcmrepa ra 
teardepepa irap 1 ocro (papra^ofiovp. Nofii^et 6 xpicTiavbs 
on to iraXatoaaXtaytcoGvXXeieTripio fiov elvat ^cooXoytKo 
fiovcrelo orrov teal airovBd^ea ?r) (pvatKtf i^eXt^t rov etBovs. 
"E, fie teap<ptro~a rj aovfSXdtet i^eXia-aoPTat Vto Btteo 
fiov fiaya^L) 'AX\* i7retBr) fitXei? erat yta rr)p avayicr) teal 
T?)? (pvaeeos teal Tt)<i laropias, teal elaai KaOrffqrrjt rov 
UaveTTurTqfiiov rf}? Aenfrias, firfTrco? ypo)pt%et<i tcdnotop 
, Apiarore\'t]V ; — to iirldero rov Sep £epa) itcTos ore dpytpel 
diro II. $alpeTa(, otc €)(ei fStfiXtdpto o-vyypafifiepo irepvat, 
H NIKH TH2 TEPMANIAS, teal Sep KaTcopBtaae tcaXa 
pa to TrovXijarj' ireptcaevovp rovXaj^taTop dprtTvira *ott)p 
Trarpiha fiov. 'Eyvpeyfra teal eyeb Bcopeap Bvo xiXtdBes, " iirl 
tcvteXocpopla i0ptico<ppopttcr)<; TrpoiraydpBa? " tcad.a><; fiov 
Trap^yyeiXe epa$ yovvapacotcdTrrjXos dirb rr)p Udrpa, teal 
to, Bcapifio) fidXiaTa treptTvXtyfiepa ae tedde treprdpa 
aaXidyteovi Tptyvpoi' elfiat 7rto"T09 apOpcoTros, fSXetret?, dXXd 
teal e£i>7n>o?* teal yta pet aov irS) tt)p dXr]deta, tcvpte, ifie'pa 
fiov tcatco(f>atpeTat Xtydtet pa etpe fnraytdTttcat<$ teal tcXovftiats 
trplp fias TTpo<r<pep6ovpe f) tcofifiaTtteal's petcXdfiat? trov 
crfcopTrt£ovpe iBS>. *AXXa 7rw<? cov (patperat 6 cvyy pa(f>ev<;, 6 
'Apto-ToreXr}? — nepvcnpopeteXafidtcifi ; Top yp(opi%et<i ; Elvat 
" Kp7)PTtytcb<i " teal avTos ; 

r. 'AaT€t%ecrai, (p'tXe fiov, teal ptgp vrpiiret' elvat tcaXhs 
aPTpioiros teal tfrape fSefiatto? 6 enTovBatorepos air oXovs 



268 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

T01/5 fiarrjrd? fiov. "Afia eiraXrfi evo"rj f) irpay/iareia rov 
Kai Kvptevcrovfie ifiels oXov rov Koafiov, vrev rd dare'l^erai 
Kavet? irXid' rravrov rd roiKOKoXXTjrf) rj yvwaroiroLrfo-ts, 
O Koparevwv rj dcrrel%6fievo<; Kwpls avroKparopiKrjv dvretav 
vtroKevrat «? ttolvlk-^v Karavrtco^tv." 

K. Tov Xoyov gov Xot7rbv } orav 7rpoa , rroLr]6rjKe<i va elaat 
Kpr}Tiico<i, Zev rb emes Vra jeopard ; 

r. "Oki, eyJrevrrjKa, rb 6/ioXoyKO), fid vrev eKcopdrevaa' 
ot Tfcep/Aavol vrev Kaparevovv, KardXafie? ; 

K. KardXafia, fiovd^a tyevBovrat. 

r. ^Eirtrpeirerat eh roi>$ TKepfiavovt vd yfrevvrovrat fie 
KaXbv gkottov, orav rb diratrel 6 irarptcortafio^. 

K. Kal vd Kara^ea^i^ovve cvvOij/ces, vTroOeray, teal 
va fSaaavt^ovve al^fiaXcorov<i ical va irapa^idtpvve yv- 
vatice? Kal vd o~<f>d£ovve 7raiSdicia. 'O Geo? va <f>v- 
Xd^rj I elvat rrarptayriofib? fipv/coXd/cwv. Kal iaiva, Kvpte 
ZeirireXtvaKT), dv iyKptvet<i rkroia KaKovpytf/iara, ae 
avfif3ovXevco vd (SydXys avrb rb tyevriKo o~ov ovofia Kal 
vd Xdf3y<; trtb KardXXrjXo Kal yvrjatwi KprjriKo, Kara- 
XavaSaKT)?. 

r. Tcopa vrev KaraXaf3alva> TrXia rl Xeyet<s' dXXa 
fioXovort vf3p%ei<; rob? TKepfiavovs, ra vtKtjaovfie' f) vUi) 
/xa?, 07TO)? Kal eyKpatye 6 GVfiirarpuorrfs fiov, elvat IcrropiKrj 
dvdyKt)' 7] <f>vcriK7) etjeXigt? ra>v iOvcbv rov Kocfiov rrjv 
e7rif3dXXei dirapatrrjr(o<i Kal dvairo<jievKra)<;. 

K. Elvat £rjrr)fia fieydXo' dXX* dv 0eXrj<; vd rb avCflrrf- 
covfie, Bev fiov Xe$, irapaKaXS), — r) laropiKrf dvdyKt] 8ta(pepet 
dirb rrj tyvo~iK7}, rj rb tSto elvat ; _ 

r. Nrta(f>epet, ottois a/ep/3w? vrta(j)4pet rb fiepo<i dirb ro 
avvoXov. 'H iaroptKrj dvdr/K7j rreptopi^erat eh ra dvrpco-^ 



APPENDIX 269 

Trtva ervrj rov Koa/iov' rj <f>V(rt,fcr} preairo^ei, irXrjv ra>p 
avrpcoircov, Kal rov koct/hov oXokXtjpov, rrjv y/erjv, rrjv 
rdXacro-av, rov ovpavbv, real oo~a %a>a /cat <pvrd virdpKovv. 

K. ' Oo~ov dcjjopa rov? dv6pa)7rov<; Xolttov, Xeyovpe rj 
icrropiKr) fj (f)v<riicri rrjv « avdyferj, oVcd? 6e\ovfie' dhidfyopo 
etvai d(f>ov eyeu rr\v iSia crjfiaa-ia. 

r, i Avrid<p'opov, dvrid<j)opov. 

K. 'flpaia* reopa, irapakaXw, iroia gov <f>aiverai rj irpcory 
teal fieyaXevreprj avdy/crj reav dv6pa>7T(ov ; 

T. Nd rraivrevovrai Kd\a, vh dvrCkap,$dv<avrat, tj}? 
vriavoT)Tt/crj<s dvairrvfjeoos rrj<i irarpevros fiov, Kal €7rofiev(o<i 
vh irapofioid^ow ogop rb vrvvarbv Trpo? rovs Ticepp,avov<;. , 

K. Ma Sep ft €PP07]o~€<}, Kvpie. $rala> IW? eyeo Kal 
Sep €K<j>pd^a> KcCka re? epd>rriGe^ fiov. 'AXb? ctcti 6a 
crvpeppo7]0ovpe, mGreveo' ra rraiStd aa<s rrov rraiSevovrai 
t6o~o Trepicpij/ia, fiijircos rp&pe icdOe irpm' rrplv vet rrdve 
<r%o\6i6 ; 

T. Hw? ; Koyph $ayiel Sep 6a virofiepave top kottop r&p 
aarrjjidreov roup' elvai 07ToXvtg)? dvdyfcr} pa rpcoyKovv. 

K. MvrpdjSo' tcai ol Grpanatrai Stct pa, virofievovv tov$ 
kottovs rov iroXe/iov, elvai diro\vra><i dvcuyKrj va rpeoyovv /cal 
avrol ; 

r. "I<tg>9. 

K. $aiverat \onrbv r) rrpmrr) koX fieyaXe Crept) dpdyfcr] 
reap dp6p(o7ra)P pa elvai rb <payi ; Kal, crap ireivovve, 6a 
rrporipiovve vet rpcove Kal to. dyovpa Ko\oKv6ia irapa pa 
GtrovSd^ovve rd TepfxaviKa roiavra ; 

r. Kcoparevei? Kal itoXlv, Kal vrev diravrSt ifkea, iav 
ifjaKoXovTeui va fie ireipd^y;. 



270 TALES OF ^EGEAN INTRIGUE 

K. Avrrovfxau ttoXv, Kvpie' elvai Kauri fiov avvrjOeia va 
yeXto XiyaKi ki orav elvai 7roXv cofiapb rb tyry/ia. Ma<s 
Xeiirovv iBa>, ftXeTreis, rd rrporeprjfiara tt}? TepfiaviK^ 
TraiZeias, Kal rrpoKvirrei rravrov f\ Pa/iaUia] rraiBid. 
Xvyyvu> firjv, o~e treipd^co Kal rrdXiv. '4U' avrb rjdeXa vd 
a epcorrj<T(i} iroXv cirovBaiwi' a? irovfie 8ri 77 irpcarrf dvdyKij 
rcav av6 pwTTcav diroreXelrai airb rb <f>ayTjr6' dXXd, rbv Katpb 
rrov rroXefiovve, firprui's f) Bevrepa dvdyKr) elvai va Kara~ 
arpefyovve tou? eyBpovs rcov rj rovXd%io~rov v diroKpovovv 
eVtrv^w? Ka\ Siapiccos res eiriOeaeis rcov. 

r. MdXiara. 

K. Aid tovto yjpeia^ovrai, fiov <j>aiverai, rroXXd irpd- 
fiara, povya /col irairovraia oreped, Kal oirXa, nal rrvpo- 
fia^iKa KaOe Xoyfjs, Kal dnrb KaOe elBos fieyaXeireprj 
rroo-orqra rrapd oatj irapdyerai et? elprjviKrf eiro^rj, 'JEcrefc 
cltto rrolo fiipo? 6d rd Xd{3r)T€ ; 

r. Upoeroifidcafie rrapd iroXXd, Trpiv va yKivrj 6 
TroXe/jLos. 

K. Upoeroifidaare fteftaico? Biori dnvo^taqlcare eo~el<; 
ttjv Karapafievrj avrrj aifiaroyyo~ia' aXXa eireiBr) Kara- 
vaXcaaare irXid rd rrepiGaorepa, airb rrolo fiepos 6a rd 
Trdprjre r<opa ; 

r. TlapdyKovfie fiepiKa. 

K. \4\V oyi dpKerd Sid vd rpo(f>oBoreire Kal rd BiKa 
<ra9 crparevfiara Kal rd AvarpiaKa Kal rd BovXyapiKd Kal 
rd TovpKiKa. 'ETreiBrj avve^i^ei rbv diroKXeiafib 6 crroXos 
rcov "AyyXtov Kal rcov avfifid^cov row, rrovQev 6d XdfSijre 
rd 7roXefio<j>6Bia ; 

V. Miropel va rrdpovfie dirb rrjv * AfiepiKr\v' vrev elvre<s 
eras icfyrj/iepivra*} ?nw? KareirXevaav eKei rripa vrvo ep/nopiKa 
/ta? virofipvKia ; 



APPENDIX 271 

K ElBa' zeal orav eytve irpb 6\iyov 6 airo/eXeiapibs rrjs 
KptjTT]*;, KaraTrXevcrave Bvo \a0pep,7ropiicd (j,a$ /cat/cia el$ — 
8%i, Bev irpkirei va dvacpipo) rbv totto — /cat jvplaave iricra) 
cwara /cat to, Bvo, aXKa /aoXotovto eh 6\l<ye<; r)p,epe<i pecra 
et^ap.e <f>6j3o /cat eKovre^apbe piaXiara va Treivdpue. 

r. 'AW* ipLei? teal vcrepa anrb vrvo er&v aTroitKeiapiov 

j3a(TT0VpL€ d/CO/jLT}. 

K. MakicTa, Slot/, elvat iro\v peyaXelrepr] rj %w/ja <ra? 
koX irXovauorepT], koI o7reo? elira ec^are koX iroWa rpo(f>tp,a 
vrpoeToip,aapLeva' pa Bev 0a fiaaraTe okovev rb cBio 6a 
VTTO(f>epeTe pe top Kaipo' irdvrore vnca 77 OaKacaoKparia' elvat 
<})WiKT} dvdyicT]. 

r. Me avytcapetTe, vrev rjpnropSi irXeov va av^Tqaoi' pk 
irtdvet i) raXa<T(ra. 

sC Kal 6a Gas iriday 0X01/9' elvat, <f>vo~tKt} dvdytcr). 



W 83 




















<>t-. A 

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 



* v sr A J . '■^T&y/lVm* KT ^ *^»*l' Deaciomea using u ib ow"^^--!"- 

«0 <J» *7^T* VV ^ * Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 




Treatment Date: ^y 



2001 



• %> PreservationTechnologies 

l <* A WOHLtt LEADER I* PAPER PRESERVATION 

^ A 111 Thomson Park Drive '« 

* A V Cranberry Township. PA 16066 

*V (724)779-2111 

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